Iran, Iraq, Syria Reach Historic Deal to Create Transport Corridor
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – High-ranking officials from Iran, Syria, and Iraq have agreed to create “a multimodal transport corridor” a part of efforts to boost trade relations between the three Muslim nations.
“The three friendly and brotherly countries of Iran, Iraq, and Syria have good and growing business relations,” Iranian Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development Shahram Adamnejad told the Tasnim News Agency.
“Given the actual and potential capacities created by the bilateral agreements between the three countries as well as the prospect of increasing these exchanges in the near future, we will witness a new chapter of trade prosperity in the territories of the three countries,” he added.
“Accordingly, the three countries have agreed to establish a multimodal transport corridor on the route from Iran to Iraq and Syria, and vice versa,” the deputy minister went on to say.
Speaking at a trilateral meeting between the state-owned Iraqi Republic Railways (IRR) and its Iranian and Syrian counterparts, the IRR Managing Director Talib Jawad Kazim praised Iran’s achievements in the railroad industry and said the sanctions have made Iran archive great successes.
He further pointed to the railroad project connecting Iran’s Shalamcheh to Iraq’s Basra and said his country is willing to speed up the project so that the two countries’ rail networks are connected to each other and then connected to Syria.
During Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Iraq in March, the two countries signed five deals to promote cooperation in various fields.
The documents entail cooperation between Iran and Iraq concerning the Basra-Shalamcheh railroad project, visa facilitation for investors, cooperation in the health sector, and agreements between the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade of Iran and Ministry of Trade of Iraq, and another one in the field of oil between the petroleum ministries of the two countries.
Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Reza Rahmani has said that Tehran and Baghdad have agreed to reach the target of raising the value of annual trade exchange to $20 billion within two years.