North Korea to turn the clocks back by 30 minutes

Since then, Japan, North Korea and South Korea have run on the same local time – nine hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

KCNA claims “wicked Japanese imperialists” have been depriving Korea of its standard time.

North Korean authorities will introduce a new time zone “Pyongyan time” from August 15.

North Korea-like South Korea-has used Japanese standard time since Japan occupied the Korean peninsula, starting in 1912.

North Korea, however, still uses anti-Japanese sentiment to whip up nationalist fervor, reminding the population about Japanese war crimes, such as the use of Korean slave labor. The proposed Pyongyang Time of UTC+8.5 is said to be based on the longitude of 127.5 degrees east, which passes through the Korean Peninsula.

A Canadian pastor who has been detained in North Korea for the past six months made his first public announcement from the country’s capital this week, saying that he has “malignantly defamed the dignity and social system” of the isolated Asian country.

The two Koreas were divided into the capitalist, U.S.-backed South and the socialist, Soviet-supported North after their 1945 liberation.

Earlier this year, Crimea skipped ahead two hours at 2 am on March 30, so they were on the same time as Moscow.

Analysts said Pyongyang’s time shift was aimed at shoring up the official narrative that paints North Korea as the pure, “authentic” Korea and the South as a land polluted by foreign domination.

“In the short term, there might be some inconvenience in entering and leaving Kaesong”, ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee said. In 1912, a decree of imperial Japan had moved the time zone of Korea to the meridian where it is still today, 135 degrees east.

Cho admits experts advised him that the current system is more practical, and warned the half hour change could cause chaos and confusion.

North Korea has introduced its own time zone in what the dictator-led regime describes as a break from its “imperialist” past.