Students attending a pro-Pyongyang university in Tokyo have returned to North Korea for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to state media, a major step toward resuming regular ideological education for ethnic Koreans in Japan.

“A group of final-year students of Korea University arrived in Pyongyang by plane on the 27th,” the party daily Rodong Sinmun announced on Wednesday.

Korea University is located in Tokyo and is affiliated with the pro-DPRK Chongryon organization of ethnic Koreans in Japan. (It is not connected to the university of the same name in Seoul.)

The Choson Sinbo, Chongryon’s official