Passenger train services between China and North Korea will resume this week six years after they were suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, railway authorities in Beijing confirmed on Tuesday.
Train travel between the two countries was halted in 2020 after they imposed strict border closures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
While China has fully reopened its borders, North Korea has proceeded more slowlyalthough direct flights and train services with Russia resumed last year.
But China Railway announced on Tuesday evening that regular train services between Beijing and Pyongyang would resume on Thursday.
The services will help “promote personnel exchanges, economic and trade cooperation and cultural exchanges between the two countries,” China Railway said.
Earlier on Tuesday, travel agents for an official ticket booth in Beijing told AFP that anyone with a valid visa was now able to buy train tickets to the diplomatically isolated country.
This will include Chinese working and studying in North Korea, as well as North Koreans working, studying and visiting family abroad.
Another such ticket booth in the Chinese border city of Dandong told AFP that sales would resume on Wednesday, but tourists were not yet eligible to buy tickets.
“It’s great to see the resumption of the international train service,” Rowan Beard, tour manager at Young Pioneer Tours, told AFP.
He confirmed that his company, one of several foreign firms specializing in travel to North Korea, could also arrange tickets from Thursday.
“While not initially intended for tourists, it will provide another travel option once tourism in North Korea eventually returns, serving as an alternative to flying,” Beard said.
The China Railways statement said trains will run in both directions between Beijing and Pyongyang every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Entry and exit procedures will be completed at the Dandong border crossing and Sinuiju in North Korea, he said.
Tickets are currently available for offline purchase in some Chinese cities, the statement added.
Before the official announcement, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement that it expected services to resume on Thursday, adding: “we will continue to closely monitor related developments.”
Close neighbors
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a press conference ahead of the announcement that “maintaining regular passenger train services is of great importance in facilitating people-to-people exchanges between the two sides.”
Despite periods of strained relations between China and North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the two neighbors have maintained close ties.
China is historically North Korea’s biggest backer and a crucial lifeline for its moribund economy, although Pyongyang has drawn closer to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine.
North Korea’s reclusive authorities have given mixed signals about whether further opening is on the cards.
On Monday, Koryo Tours said North Korea had canceled an international marathon in its capital Pyongyang originally planned for early next month, citing an official statement without explanation for the decision.
The cancellation was “unexpected”, the company said, adding that it understood the decision was “made at a level above the event organizers themselves”.
The marathon is the biggest international sporting event in North Korea, offering visitors a rare chance to run through the tightly controlled streets of Pyongyang.
