Brilliant!
This is going to be a great advantage for Pakistan, connecting Europe and Central Asia by Railway Track.
Iran offers Pakistan to Join Trans-Asian Railway
ISLAMABAD: Iran has offered Pakistan to join in vying to connect Europe through a trans-Asian railway.
The strategically important issue was discussed on Tuesday between the Co-chairmen of Pakistan-Iran Joint Economic Commission (JEC): Ahmad Khorram, Iranian Minister for Transport, and Shaukat Aziz, Prime Minister’s Advisor on Finance and Economic Affairs.
“The two sides agreed that the communication and transport sector needs to be given priority to link Iran and Pakistan with Central Asia and the Europe,” a Finance Ministry announcement said.
Trade, economic cooperation, communication network and involvement of private sector in economic cooperation and revival of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) were also discussed.
About the ambitious transport and communication link between the East and the West, the Iranian side said Iran was completing the needed work of optic fibre in three months to connect Iran with Central Asia, Turkey and the Gulf countries.
Similarly, Iran was upgrading its rail links from Kirman to Zahidan and from Zahidan to Taftan for an effective railway link with Pakistan. It would in turn connect Pakistan with Europe, provided Pakistan fills the gap in its own rail network.
Iran was also upgrading its railway links from Khurram Sahahar, Basra and Syria linking it with Turkey to provide an effective railway link for promoting trade with Europe.
“This trans-Asia railway corridor would also facilitate intra-country travel by citizens of respective countries to promote friendship and understanding,” the ministry’s statement maintained.
In 1995, an ambitious plan was conceived for trans-Asian railway, with two passages - South Corridor and North-South Corridor.
Bangladesh, India, Iran, Pakistan and Sri Lanka agreed to develop this plan to kick-start regional and international trade of all the connecting countries.
In the light of trade and economic exchanges between the countries belonging to sub-regional groupings in South and Southeast Asia, it was agreed to re-evaluate, and if necessary re-define, the network previously identified, and assess improvements required in institutional and commercial procedures to attract international traffic to the corridor.
The countries considered findings and recommendations of the study during a Policy-level Expert Group Meeting in Dhaka in May 1999 during which the countries agreed to establish working groups to study gradual operationalisation of the corridors.
However, since then, progress was stalled largely due to Indian intransigence in the region. The current configuration suggested its total length at 27,700 km, almost 3279 km in Pakistan, 990km in China, 9017 km in India, 6179 km in Iran, 1358 km in Bangladesh, 531 km in Sri Lanka, 153 km in Thailand and 4053 km in Turkey.
The Trans-Asian Railway network in the North-South Corridor of routes between Europe and the Persian Gulf with onward connections to South and Southeast Asia was also identified by the participating railway organizations as another option, connecting Northern Europe with the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas at its southern extremity.
In addition, it would offer onward shipping connections to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and would also provide the landlocked countries of Central Asia a rail connection to one of the main ports on the Persian Gulf.
Since Iran was branded by the United States as one of the so-called ‘axis of evil’; it had expeditiously started work on alternate plans to meet any eventuality in case of a final showdown with the US.
The strong regional linkage was one of its primary objectives. With the development of road, rail, communication and pipeline infrastructure, Iran, as well as other countries, could have better strategic options, both in terms of economy and defence.
Since the US focus and interest in the energy rich Central Asian Republics (CARs) was obvious, effective linkages between South, East and Central Asia would definitely offer a great advantage.
At a time when Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan had signed a tripartite agreement for a gas pipeline, and the feasibility study was progressing well with the help of the Asian Development Bank, Iran had also renewed its efforts for Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project. There was no problem on the subject between Iran and Pakistan. However, Indian reluctance to accept its passage through Pakistan, despite Iranian assurances had so far frustrated all efforts.
Pakistan and Iran identified Tuesday oil and gas pipelines, setting up of refineries, energy and communication sectors as areas of cooperation between Pakistan and Iran.
Ahmad Khorram, the Iranian Minister for Transport, said expeditious implementation of three agreements and MOU in agriculture, trade, science and technology and other areas of mutual interest could realise trade and economic potential between the two countries.
So far, bilateral trade between the two countries reflect dismal trends, with volumes ranging between $150-200 million per annum, largely on account of petroleum imports by Pakistan from Iran, Pakistan’s exports were rice and some textile items alone.
It is expected to be completed in 2004.