Tehran, Iran, July 23
Trend:
The country is ready to start the construction of Shalamcheh-Basra railway construction, said the Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development of Iran, Trend reports citing ILNA.
"We are ready to start the construction after specific area is provided to us. Since the region was in the warzone, the area should be cleaned up, so that there will be no problem in the working process," Khayrullah Khademi noted.
"Iran investment in that region will be in done in the build-operate-transfer form (BOT) that shall be acceptable for the Iraqi side," he added.
The rail corridor between Iran and China, of which the Shalamche-Basra section is a part, was restored back in 2015, and now only a 32-kilometer distance between Shalamche and Basra has remained to be added to it.
After construction of the Basra-Shalamche railway, a number of Silk Road countries including China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey will be connected to Europe.
During the recent visit of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Baghdad, the two countries agreed to complete this section of the railway.
According to the new agreement, due to the financial problems of Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to build 32-kilometer railway inside Iraq alongside a special bridge on the Arvand River.