India willing to join Europe rail link, Iran says

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran says India has voiced interest to join an ambitious project to establish a multimodal transit corridor that starts in a key southern Iranian port and passes through several Central Asian states before reaching Europe through the sea, Press TV reports.

The announcement was made by Davoud Keshavarzian, Iran’s deputy minister of roads and urban development and the director of the country’s Roads Maintenance and Transportation Organization.

Keshavarzian added that Georgia – a key state that would host the planned Iran-Europe corridor – had also called for expediting efforts to get the project off the ground.

The official was speaking in a meeting with Rosalia Dimitrova, the visiting director of Bulgaria’s National Customs Agency, IRNA reported.

He further added that the draft on the agreement for the establishment of the corridor had been prepared and submitted to member states.

Keshavarzian emphasized that member states of the corridor will soon hold an expert-level meeting to discuss the technicalities of the project to be followed by a ministerial meeting in which the final agreement for the project will be signed, he added.

The corridor would start in Iran’s Bandar Abbas port and go through Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.