North Korea Creates ‘Pyongyang Time’ In Lieu Of 70th Anniversary Of Liberation From Japan

North Korea used to be in the same time zone as South Korea and Japan up until August 15.

State news agency, KBNA, announced that North Korea will set its clocks back by 30 minutes to “Pyongyang time” until mid August to mark the 70th anniversary of liberation from Japan, according to CNN.

This will set North Korea 8.5 hours ahead of GMT, just as it was before Japan colonized Korea in 1910.

“The wicked Japanese imperialists committed such unpardonable crimes as depriving Korea of even its standard time while mercilessly trampling down its land with 5,000 year-long history and culture and pursuing the unheard-of policy of obliterating the Korean nation,” KCNA reported.

The change may further affect North Korea’s relationship with South Korea.

South Korea has stated that the change could cause short-term problems at the Kaesong industrial plant in North Korea, which is jointly run by the two Koreas, according to BBC News.

“And in the longer term, there may be some fallout for efforts to unify standards and reduce differences between the two sides,” Unification Ministry official Jeong Joon-Hee stated.

North Korea isn’t the only one of the Koreas to make the move. South Korea had reportedly set its time zone back by 30 minutes between 1954 and 1961.

There had reportedly been proposals to move it back again in 2013, but South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee stated that Seoul time is based on “practical considerations and not on colonial history”.

Aside from North Korea, both Samoa and Venezuela decided to change their time zones as well; however, both countries went for the change for practical reasons.

Samoa reportedly changed its time zone in 2011 in order to make communication easier with its neighbors, Australia and New Zealand. Venezuela reportedly turned its clocks back by half an hour because President Hugo Chavez wanted to have a “more fair distribution of the sunrise” to residents.