Page 55 - IRANRptAug22

Russian construction financed by Iranian oil barter to figure in push to complete INSTC transit corridor segment
Russia freight train arrives in Iran, marking new trade corridor milestone
Tashkent.
Yue added that “Beijing sees Afghanistan as a bridge linking Central and South Asia”.
Clearly, vital security concerns would have to be overcome before the Trans-Afghan railroad could go ahead. While Afghanistan’s Taliban regime has welcomed the railway project, anti-Taliban terrorist groups in the country, including Islamic State, might prove a threat to the infrastructure.
Earlier at the conference, Uzbekistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov said that his country, Afghanistan and Pakistan had begun fieldwork on the Trans-Afghan railroad project.
The three countries have signed a joint plan to build the 573-km railroad. It would boast an annual transit capacity of up to 20mn tonnes of cargo.
Some transport analysts suggest the Trans-Afghan railway could one day intersect with a proposed West-East line connecting Iran to China via Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Russian construction assistance financed by a barter for Iranian oil will bring forward the completion of the Astara to Rasht rail route segment running by Iran's Caspian Sea coast to mid-2023, according to Iranian officials cited by Iranian press.
Iran plans to open up multi-modal cargo transportation to and from Russia via the Astara (both Iran and Azerbaijan have cities on the Caspian Sea coast named Astara, which face each other over the Astarachay border river) to Rasht (further south on the Caspian Sea coast) and Caspian Port to Rasht routes, but as things stand only trucks have full use of the options, the director of the Iranian Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures Company, Abbas Khatibi, was reported as saying.
The Astara to Rasht and Caspian Port to Rasht rail routes form an integral part of the developing International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), primarily presented as providing trade linkage between Russia and India, via Azerbaijan and Iran’s Sea of Oman (Indian Ocean) Chabahar port, but also offering links such as the connection of Caspian Sea maritime trade to Iran’s Persian Gulf ports, opening up access to much of the Middle East, and East Africa, as well as South Asia.
When completed the INSTC route will be billed as quicker and less expensive than the Asia to Europe Suez Canal route.
INSTC has assumed far greater importance to Russia since its late February invasion of Ukraine provoked a wave of heavy Western economic sanctions aimed at Moscow, causing the Kremlin to accelerate efforts to reorientate much of the Russian economy away from the West and towards the East and South. Iran, with its access to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, is an essential part of Russia’s transit ambitions.
An initial Russian freight train has arrived at Iran’s Sarakhs railway station in Khorasan-Razavi province on the border with Turkmenistan, IRNA reported on July 12.
The rail haulage development is important in the context of the accelerated development of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). A big aim of the corridor is to provide Russia with substantial import-export trade access to the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman (Indian Ocean) via Iran, while also allowing it to develop trade links with Iran’s Arab neighbours to the west. INSTC has been under discussion for years, with little tangible progress in realising the project, but it has taken on a new lease of life given how Western countries have cut off access to Russian hauliers following the invasion of Ukraine. The Iran route now provides Moscow with increasingly vital options
55 IRAN Country Report August 2022 www.intellinews.com