A Berlin hostel located on the same property as North Korea’s embassy to Germany must close, a court in the city ruled on Tuesday, arguing that its continued operations constituted a violation of international and EU sanctions against the DPRK.

The City Hostel — previously run by a third party on agreement with the DPRK embassy on a rental contract of EUR 38,000 per month — had originally been ordered shut in November 2018 by local law enforcement.

Its operators protested that decision, arguing that, since they had stopped paying rent to the North Koreans in April the previous year, it no longer represented a violation of international sanctions and that the decision was not a matter for local police.

Berlin’s administrative court on Tuesday rejected that claim.

“The district office in the center of Berlin prohibited the plaintiff from using the property in November 2018, citing EU regulation (EU) 2017/1509 on restrictive measures against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (EU regulation),” a press release from the court read.

“According to this, it is already prohibited, inter alia, to engage in an activity involving the use of the property of the government of the DPRK,” it continued.

“The decision was rightly based on the general police clause in conjunction with the EU regulation. The provision is applicable and in particular is not superseded by commercial law.”

Offering cheap rooms in the heart of the German capital, local outlet DW on Tuesday described the City Hostel as having long been a “favorite” of visiting students and backpackers.

But it also served as something of a thorn in the side of German authorities, with repeated attempts to shut it down stalling amid legal wrangling.

And despite a judge’s call Tuesday for it to close due to North Korea’s continued “threat to world peace due to its nuclear weapons program,” rooms in the hostel are still available for purchase on the hostel’s website.

Responding to the ruling, the U.S. ambassador to Germany welcomed the decision, saying in a tweet that his staff had “been hard at work getting this hotel shut down.”

“It seems like a no-brainer to us,” Ambassador Richard Grenell said. “North Korea is under UN sanctions and the Germans are the Chair of the UN enforcement committee.”

North Korean diplomats overseas have long been known to rent out parts of their property to earn hard currency, with an investigation by NK News’s sister site NK Pro in 2017 revealing that the DPRK embassy in Poland had been leasing office space to local media companies.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations prohibits diplomatic agents engaging in any commercial activity for personal profit, with UN Resolution 2321 also stating “that DPRK diplomatic agents are prohibited in the receiving State from such practice of professional or commercial activity.”

Neither the DPRK embassy in Berlin nor the City Hostel responded to requests for comment from NK News sent on Wednesday.

Edited by James Fretwell