Russia To Construct Rasht-Astara Railway Track

Tehran, May 11, IRNA – Managing Director of Iran Railways Organization Mohsen Pour Seyed Aqaie said on Saturday that Russia will build Rasht-Astara railway track based on an agreement with Tehran and Baku. The agreement was reached in the trilateral meeting of the Iranian official and Managing Director of Russia’s Railways Vladimir Yakunin and the Azeri counterpart on the sidelines of the 60th Meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Rail Council in Kazakhstan on Saturday. Also on the basis of the agreement, Azerbaijan’s Railways Company will construct the railway from Iran-Azerbaijan border to the first railway station inside its soil. The CIS Rail Transport Council was established in 1992 as a coordinating body of the railway administrations of the CIS. The Council is made up of rail transport administration and management body chiefs. The project envisages the connection of Azerbaijani and Iranian railway systems through Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan). Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan) railway project is of great importance for the development of “North-South” international transport corridor whose commodity market is estimated to rise to 25-26 million tons by 2015. The significant part of “North-South” corridor runs through Russia’s railway. The length of Rasht-Astara -Qazvin railway is 205 kilometers, and the length of the railway track between Qazvin and Rasht is 164 kilometers. Some 82 bridges with a total length of nine kilometers and 53 tunnels with a total length of 22 kilometers will be built along the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway track. Establishing a direct railway link to the western coast of the Caspian Sea can significantly expedite the development of transportation in the region and become a good stimulus for expansion of foreign economic relations of these countries with European states./end