North Korea and Russia open first road bridge over Tumen River

North Korea and Russia opened their first cross-border road bridge over the Tumen River, connecting the North Korean city of Rason with the Russian locality of Khasan, North Korean state media reported on Tuesday.

The bridge is “a guarantee for building up and reinforcing an important infrastructure for economic cooperation between the two countries and revitalizing multifaceted cooperation including human exchange, tourism and commodity circulation,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published the day after opening ceremonies for the bridge took place simultaneously in Rason and Khasan. 

The road bridge, about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) long, is expected to facilitate the transport of large volumes of cargo, potentially boosting economic and military exchanges and tourism by enabling passenger traffic. Until now, the only crossing between North Korea and Russia was a rail bridge over the Tumen River.

North Korea and Russia agreed on a plan to build the road bridge at a bilateral summit in Pyongyang in June 2024, and construction began near the existing Tumen River rail bridge in April last year. 

“The bridge is a new symbol of friendship between the two countries, adding to the new dynamic movement in the overall […] cooperation,” North Korean Premier Pak Thae-song said during the opening ceremony. 

The relations between North Korea and Russia “have been put on an unprecedentedly high level of comprehensive strategic partnership,” Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said. 

“Russia will, as ever, do its utmost for the multifaceted development of the bilateral relations.” 

The road bridge has been named after Yakov Novichenko, a Soviet Red Army officer credited with intercepting a grenade thrown at North Korean founder Kim Il Sung in 1946.

The KCNA said that the name reflects the two countries’ “steadfast will of the leaderships and peoples of both countries to invariably develop the good-neighborly relations between [them] into genuine comradely relations of trust.”

BY JUNG SI-NAE [[email protected]]