Farzaneh Sadegh, Iran\u2019s minister of roads and urban development, proposed at the Trans-Afghan expert meeting in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, that Afghanistan\u2019s railway line from Herat be extended toward the Uzbekistan border. Referring to reviews of rail-related cooperation among Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, she said the route should ultimately be connected to the rail networks of Central Asia and China.<\/p>\n
The Iranian minister stressed that extending the railway could create new opportunities for cargo transport and give regional countries access to open waters. She also called for an urgent meeting of representatives from Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China under the framework of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) to examine practical ways to advance the project.<\/p>\n
Sadegh, referring to the Chabahar port transit agreement between Iran, Afghanistan and India, described the port as an important capacity for expanding cargo transport from Afghanistan and Central Asian countries to global markets. She also noted that linking Afghanistan\u2019s railway through Sarakhs and Razi to Turkey and Europe, as well as through Sarakhs and Jolfa to the Caucasus and the Black Sea, are practical and effective plans for regional transport.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Afghanistan\u2019s Ministry of Economy said the country has considerable potential to connect with regional countries and welcomes investment from all countries, including Iran, in railway development and the facilitation of transit cooperation. The ministry added that Afghanistan is ready to cooperate in developing rail infrastructure and strengthening transit ties.<\/p>\n
The Trans-Afghan meeting in Astana was attended by the transport ministers of Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Kazakhstan, as well as the head of the railways administration of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, to discuss the development of rail cooperation and regional transport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran has proposed extending Afghanistan’s Herat rail line to the Uzbekistan border to boost regional transit and trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-important-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}