Tehran, Iran, April 29
Trend:
The Deputy Head of Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (RAI) announced that Iran is ready to launch the Tehran-Ankara passenger rail line in July this year and said that RAI proposed to increase the volume of cargo transiting between Iran and Turkey.
"Iran and Turkey agreed on a number of issues at the meeting we had yesterday including the launch of the Tehran-Ankara train and the general terms of the project,” Deputy Head of RAI Saeed Rasouli told Trend referring to the meeting with the Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure held in Tehran on April 28.
“It was also agreed to arrange a meeting in Turkey after Ramadan to sign an agreement on linking the railways of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) for cargo transportation,” he said.
Responding to the question about the time of beginning of the Tehran-Ankara train, he said that it would be decided between the experts at next meetings.
“Iran is ready to start its operations from the beginning of July 2019, but we need finalize our plans and details,” he added. Referring to the volume of cargo shipment between Iran and Turkey, Saeed Rasouli said that this issue was also discussed at the meeting on April 28.
“Currently, we have between 200,000 to 450,000 tons of cargo exchanged between two countries and this figure is set to rise to one million tons,” he said. “This requires actions to be taken by both parties.”
"We also talked about multilateral meeting between Iran, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan to launch CIS trains,” he added. "An agreement draft is being prepared and the meeting is scheduled to be held after Ramadan in Turkey during which the draft is expected to be signed by CIS countries.”
In his words, agreements on connecting computer systems in the cargo and passenger transportation to further develop the rail transport were also reached at the meeting.
He went on to announce that another meeting between Iran's Minister of Road and Development and Turkey's Minister of Transportation is scheduled for April 29. “Today, these agreements are to be signed by the Iranian Minister of Road and his Turkish counterpart,” he said
Speaking about the main route of the Tehran-Ankara train, he reported that the passenger train passes from Tehran to Ankara from Van city in Turkey. Answering the question on whether this train would be launched on weekly or monthly basis, he said that the agreement about launching the project was reached only recently, and the details should be reviewed by experts at next meetings.
“The multilateral agreement between Iran and the CIS countries concerns rail freight transportation,” he added. “For the permission of the entry of wagons to the countries in question, protocols are to be signed. In addition, technical and executive issues should also be considered, but the draft agreement is ready.”