Astana begins the construction of part of a tripartite railway linking landlocked Central Asian states of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan with Iran and the Persian Gulf, Press TV reported.
The 677-km (421-mile) track will link Uzen in Kazakhstan with Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek in Turkmenistan and terminates in the city of Gorgan in Iran's Golestan province, reported RIA Novosti on July 13.
About 137 km (85 miles) of the railway will be on Kazakh soil, 470 km (292 miles) on Turkmen soil and 70 km (44 miles) on Iranian soil, where it will link with Iran's rail network that goes all the way to the open sea ports of the Persian Gulf.
Turkmenistan had already started working on its section on December 1, 2007 in a ceremony attended by the Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.
On that day, Berdimuhamedov said that the railway would "become the most convenient, economically efficient and important transit route for dozens of countries."
"The whole Europe, Russia, Central Asian states will have an outlet to southern seas via a shorter route. On the other hand, the Persian Gulf countries will have the same outlet in the northern direction," he added.
As of April 1, 2009, about 150 km (93 miles) of the 470-km (292-mile) track that runs through Turkmenistan had been completed.
The project is going forward simultaneously in all three countries and the railway is expected to become operational by the end of 2011.
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