Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Iran announced the official launch of the construction of the Mashhad-Zahedan railway.

This is part of the future railway that will connect Central Asia with the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Indian Ocean coast, according to First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri, Iranian media outlets reported.

He recalled that the construction of the 900-kilometer railway on the North-South route was completed three years ago by the joint efforts of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran.

The Asian and Islamic Development Banks took part in the financial supply of the project.

Now this railroad will be extended to the Iranian port of Chabahar, in order to give access to the countries of Central Asia, which are already connected with Europe, to the Indian Ocean by rail. Thus, it is planned to create a shorter way to the Indian Ocean for Europe as well.

The agreement on the construction of the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran road (KTI) was signed by the leaders of the three states in 2007 and the works in this direction began back in 2009.

In 2014, the construction of a 900-kilometer railway corridor on the North-South route from Kazakhstan through Turkmenistan to the mountainous province of Golestan in the north of Iran was completed.

The Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway will reach its full design capacity by 2022. Up to 15 million tons of cargo will be transported annually through this corridor.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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