Russia plans to open a bus route connecting Vladivostok and North Korea's Rason Special Economic Zone within this year, NK News, a U.S.-based outlet specializing in North Korea, reported Monday.
According to the report, which cited a Russian Foreign Ministry official, Vostok Intur, a Vladivostok travel company, was selected as the route operator in May this year.
The news was disclosed ahead of the completion of a new automobile-only bridge over the Tumen River linking North Korea and Russia. The bridge is being built after North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to construct a road network connecting the two countries at a summit in Pyongyang in 2024.
Once completed, the facility will mark the first automobile-only road link between the two countries and is expected to share the traffic burden with an old railway bridge on the upper Tumen River.
Meanwhile, NK News reported that recent satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea appears to have nearly completed its border crossing facility, but there has been no progress on the much larger checkpoint construction that Russia had agreed to build.
