Kazakhstan Sees Iran as Safest Path to Int’l Waters: Minister
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Kazakhstan’s Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Yerbolat Dossayev described Iran as the best and most secure path for his country to have access to high seas.
“Kazakhstan is a landlocked country and the Islamic Republic of Iran provides (it) with the best and safest route to international waters,” Dossayev said Saturday in a meeting with the visiting Iranian minister of economic affairs and finance, Ali Tayyebnia in Astana.
Stressing that his country attaches importance to having access to high seas for development of trade, he asked for using the potentials of Iran in this regard.
The Kazakh minister also referred to the Atrak Railroad project that will link Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and said the railroad will benefit not only the three countries but the entire region.
Once completed, the freight trains frequenting the railroad will transport three to five million tons of cargo annually, which could rise to 12 million tons.
Iran’s economic affairs minister, for his part, said Tehran is ready to tap the unexploited potentials of the two countries and upgrade bilateral trade relations.
He added that the completion of the Atrak Railroad will help to boost trade between Iran and Kazakhstan.