Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran Plan To Agree On Completion Of North-South Railway In 2023

Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran are preparing an intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the last section necessary to complete the overland railway route of the North-South International Transport Corridor (ITC), and plan to conclude it in 2023, Sergey Pavlov, First Deputy Managing Director of Russian Railways, told reporters on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th March, 2023) Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran are preparing an intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the last section necessary to complete the overland railway route of the North-South International Transport Corridor (ITC), and plan to conclude it in 2023, Sergey Pavlov, First Deputy Managing Director of Russian Railways, told reporters on Friday.

"The Ministry of Transport is preparing two intergovernmental agreements: Iran-Russia and trilateral Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran," Pavlov said on the sidelines of the CIS International Economic Forum.

When asked whether the document would be signed this year, he said: "Absolutely."

Iran estimates construction time for the last section of the North-South rail route at four years, but Russian Railways is ready to do it faster, Pavlov said.

The cost of building the last section of the North-South rail route is estimated at $1.6 billion, he added.

The Astara-Rasht section is part of the North-South ITC, a multimodal route from St. Petersburg to the port of Mumbai (India) with a length of 7,200 kilometers. The corridor is an alternative to the sea route connecting Europe, the countries of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal.

There are three ITC routes: Trans-Caspian (using railways and ports), western and eastern (overland). Rasht-Astara is the last section of the western route, necessary for the full operation of the railway along the entire length of the corridor.