Tehran, Iran, July 2
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
The part of the North-South Corridor that extends from southern Iran to the northern city of Rasht will be completed by September as a small length of railway near the port city is going to be finished by then, according to Gilan Province Governor General Mohammad Ali Najafi.
On the other hand, the 196-kilometer part that extends from Rasht further north to the border city of Astara will take four years, he told ILNA news agency July 2.
The International North-South Transport Corridor is meant to connect Northern Europe with Southeast Asia. It will serve as a link connecting the railways of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia.
Najafi noted that Azerbaijan has provided for 500 million euros of the Rasht-Astara section. The section is said to need a total of 1 billion euros to be completed.
He further said that a 2-kilometer-long part of the railroad connecting Iran’s Astara to Azerbaijan is being built and will take cargo heading from Europe and loaded to trucks to continue thier way southward.
Two North–South Transport Corridor-related projects in Iran would be inaugurated by September 2017, the General Director of Iranian Railways Saeed Mohammadzadeh told Trend June 19.
He added that Qazvin-Rasht (162 kilometers) section as well as Astara-Astara section (8 km in Azerbaijan’s territory and 2 km in Iran as well as an 82.5-meter railway bridge over Astara River) as part of the International North-South Transport Corridor is projected to be completed by September.
The corridor is planned to transport 6 million tons of cargo per year at the initial stage and 15-20 million tons of cargo in the future.