BEIJING, March 12 (Reuters) - The first passenger train service between the Chinese and North Korean capitals left Beijing Railway Station on Thursday, ending a six-year gap, as China moves to shore up cross-border infrastructure and rebuild ties with its neighbour.
Train K27 will arrive in the North Korean capital at 6:07 p.m. (0907 GMT) on Friday, after a journey of 24 hours and 41 minutes skirting north of the Bohai Sea with a stopover in the border city of Dandong, China's railway authority said.
China and North Korea are "friendly neighbours" and a cross-border passenger train service facilitates people-to-people exchanges, a foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters on Thursday.
China also backs stronger communication between both sides to ease such exchanges, the spokesperson added.
The service was suspended when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020.
North Korea is largely closed to foreign tourism, with few exceptions, largely for Russian tour groups under restricted arrangements, say travel agencies organising trips to the country.
RESTRICTED TICKETS
The service linking the capitals will operate four days a week in both directions, running on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, China's railway authority said in a notice.
Tickets, restricted to business visa holders, were sold out for Thursday's trip, but those for March 18 were still available, a Beijing travel agency said.
The shorter Dandong-Pyongyang link will operate daily in both directions, with the first service leaving China's northeastern city of Dandong at 10 a.m. on Thursday to arrive in Pyongyang at 6:07 p.m., the official news agency Xinhua said.
Cross-border flights were also halted during the pandemic.
North Korea's state carrier Air Koryo resumed flights to China in 2023 and now offers services between the capitals twice weekly on Tuesdays and Saturdays, its website booking service showed.
(Reporting by Colleen Howe, Florence Lo and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Stephen Coates and Clarence Fernandez)
