The Director-General of the Persian Gulf Affairs at the Iranian Foreign Ministry Alireza Enayati announced that the transport corridor connecting Oman, Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will be launched in the future, the Iranian Tehran Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Enayati, in an interview with IRNA news agency, talked of the recent visit of Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said to Tehran, saying that the volume of trade between Iran and Oman increased to $2 billion last year.
There has been also progress in the field of transportation and shipping between Iran and Oman, he said, adding that transportation and transit cooperation were among the issues discussed during the visit of Oman's sultan to Tehran.
According to Enayati, thorough discussions have been held between Tehran and Muscat for the activation of the Ashgabat Agreement, which is about the transit route between Oman, Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. He expressed hope that the corridor will be launched in the future.
The Ashgabat agreement is a multimodal transport agreement between the governments of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, India, Pakistan, and Oman for creating an international transport and transit corridor facilitating the transportation of goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. The agreement came into force in April 2016. Turkmenistan is the depository state for the agreement.
The objective of this agreement is to enhance connectivity within Eurasian region and synchronize it with other transport corridors within that region including the International NorthSouth Transport Corridor (INSTC).