Representatives of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia will discuss the construction of the North-South International Transport Corridor (MTK) and the RESTAR railway project next week in Baku, Interfax-Azerbaijan reports, citing Iranian media.
Last Sunday, Deputy Minister of Roads and City Development of Iran, Shakhriyar Afandizade, said that Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia intend to jointly invest in the project of the construction of the RisTar railway under the North-South MTC. According to him, the issue of investment will be discussed at the upcoming meeting in Azerbaijan.
North -South – an international transport corridor (MTK) with a length of 7.2 thousand kilometers, it is designed to provide transport communication between the countries of the Baltic and India through Iran.
Its main advantages over other routes (in particular over the marine route through the Suez Canal) are: reducing two or more times the distance of transportation, as well as a decrease in the cost of transporting containers, compared with the cost of transportation along the sea route.
The basis of the North-South transport corridor was laid down on September 12, 2000 according to the intergovernmental agreement signed between Russia, Iran and India. Azerbaijan joined this agreement in 2005. In general, this agreement was ratified by 13 countries (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Armenia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine).