When the group arrived at Khasan, a Russian border post in the country’s Far East, they were met by colleagues from the Foreign Ministry and taken to an airport in Vladivostok, the ministry said. In a separate statement, the ministry said the journey by railcar was the only possible way for the diplomats to cross the border.
Speaking on Friday, the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov — a career diplomat himself — said that the journey showed that diplomatic service can be “very rough and difficult” and that it only looks “very pretty and elegant” from the outside.
North Korea closed its borders in January 2020 for fear that a Covid-19 outbreak could overwhelm its public health system and damage an economy that was already struggling under international sanctions.
The country has also deployed troops along its border with China with “shoot to kill” orders to prevent smugglers from bringing in the coronavirus, Gen. Robert B. Abrams, commander of the United States military in South Korea, said in September.
The North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, declined international aid after devastating floods in the country last summer, citing similar fears of spreading the virus, the state news media reported.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/world/europe/north-korea-russia-covid-railcar-trolley.html
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