Following talks with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has revealed that Russia has agreed to begin substantive studies on the implementation of the North-South Transport Corridor, part of which will pass along the western coast of the Caspian Sea, from Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan.
“This involves working with ministries of transport, which have to look at the technical and financial parameters of such a project” Lavrov said.
“We believe that these projects will speed up cargo transit. We are discussing the final details,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.
The transport corridor from Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan is an important part of a larger north-south project.
The North-South Transport Corridor is a route from St. Petersburg to the port of Mumbai in India, with a total length of just under 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers). The goal of this corridor is to transport goods from India, Iran and other Persian Gulf countries to Russia via the Caspian Sea and on towards Northern and Western Europe.
Currently the flow of goods from India towards the European part of the Russian Federation is provided by maritime transport. From St. Petersburg, cargo has to sail around the entire western part of Europe and through the Suez Canal, resulting in an estimated travel time from Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Mumbai) to Moscow of about 40 days.
The new route – from St. Petersburg to Moscow, then to Astrakhan (Russia), Baku (Azerbaijan) and Bandar Abbas (a port city on the Persian Gulf in southern Iran) to Mumbai – is multimodal.
According to Russian Railways Logistics, the project involves the use of marine, rail and road transport, and will cut transport times by 50 percent. In the long term, this time can be reduced to just 14 days. The new route will eliminate the need to transport goods through the Suez Canal, which is not only overloaded, but also very expensive.
To realize this route along the west coast of the Caspian Sea, a new railway line will have to be built linking the Azerbaijani city of Astara to the Iranian cities of Astara, Rasht, and Qazvin.
Construction of the Qazvin-Rasht section was completed in 2015, but construction of the Rasht-Astara section is only at the development stage.
The Qazvin-Astara railway line is an infrastructure project experiencing the typical delays. The main road route passes through the territory of Iran. The section was planned for completion in 2015, but then was postponed to 2016.
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