North Koreans perform during a mass game of “The Land of the People” at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, Tuesday, June 25, 2019. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)

A soldier eats ice cream as she visits a zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea, September 12, 2018. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

Amphibious assault vehicles of the South Korean Marine Corps throw smoke bombs as they move to land on shore during a U.S.-South Korea joint landing operation drill in Pohang March 31, 2014. The drill is part of the two countries' annual military training called Foal Eagle, which began on February 24 and runs until April 18. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A student wearing a face mask prays before the start of the annual college entrance examination amid the coronavirus pandemic at an exam hall in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, December 3, 2020. South Korean officials are urging people to remain at home if possible and cancel gatherings as about half a million students prepare for a crucial national college exam. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP Photo)

Associated Press photographer Wong Maye-E tries to get her North Korean subjects to open up as much as is possible in an authoritarian country with no tolerance for dissent and great distrust of foreigners. She has taken dozens of portraits of North Koreans over the past three years, often after breaking the ice by taking photos with an instant camera and sharing them. Her question for everyone she photographs: What is your motto? Their answers reflect both their varied lives and the government that looms incessantly over all of them. (Photo by Wong Maye-E/AP Photo)

A traffic police officer directs vehicles at a street junction during sunset in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, August 25, 2016. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/AP Photo)

People attend the New Year's eve gala of youth and students at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Sunday, December 31, 2023. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)

U.S. Marines, left, and South Korean Marines, wearing blue headbands on their helmets, take positions after landing on the beach during the joint military combined amphibious exercise, called Ssangyong, part of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises, in Pohang, South Korea, Saturday, March 12, 2016. North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and “liberate” the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. (Photo by Kim Jun-bum/Yonhap via AP Photo)