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3 June 2004
PJONGYANG/BEIJING – The Goethe Institute has opened an information centre in Pyongyang, the first foreign cultural facility of its kind in North Korea.
At the opening of the library, president of the Goethe Institute, Jutta Limbach, said the facility provides a “good overview” of German history, literature, art and science, in particular medical and technical books.
The 150-sqaure-metre Goethe Information Centre is located in Chollima cultural hall in downtown Pyongyang.
Under the agreement, which took three years to negotiate, Pyongyang is required to guarantee free access to all North Koreans to uncensored German-language books, videos, CDs and newspapers.
Limbach called the opening of the centre in the isolated, Stalinist state “a political-cultural success”.
“Culture and education can achieve many things which politics alone cannot,” said Limbach before her departure to North Korea.
The Goethe Institute – which promotes German culture and language abroad – has a network of 127 institutes in 77 countries, as well as 56 reading libraries and more than 50 Goethe centres and cultural societies worldwide.
DPA
Subject: German news