Deputy transport minister Baktyluu Mombekov presented the agreement, which classes the bridge in the third category and holds it to international road standards. Traffic has run over a temporary iron bridge since the crossing opened in September 2024; the permanent one is to be built within 5 years, and the final cost of the Kyrgyz half will be set after the design documents pass review.
The bridge is a fragment of a corridor. The Barskoon to Bedel road, about 161 kilometres from the south shore of Issyk-Kul over the Tian Shan to the Chinese border, is being built with more than 50 bridges and 2 tunnels, Sook and Ashuu-Suu, as a third road link between Kyrgyzstan and China after Torugart and Irkeshtam. Main construction is planned to end in 2029.
The road to Bedel is the smaller sum on the same list.
On the same morning the committee on constitutional legislation approved the draft resolution calling the presidential election for 27 January 2027 and sent it to the full chamber, which sits on Thursday. President Sadyr Japarov has said he will stand for a second term; the Speaker, Marlen Mamataliev, said the law does not require a president to step aside for the campaign.
Japarov, in New York, discussed a Citibank branch in Kyrgyzstan with the bank’s managing director, Stephanie von Friedburg, and proposed the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, the Kambarata-1 dam, the city of Asman and the Ala-Too Resort ski cluster to it as projects; the finance ministry, Eldik Bank and ABank signed memoranda with the bank. The road to Bedel is the smaller sum on the same list.