From Iran Focus:

KIEV (Reuters) – A railway linking Russia and Iran via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan will open in December 2011, a top Turkmen executive said on Monday.

The link, which will be constructed by the two ex-Soviet states, along with Iran, will cover 900 km (560 miles) and will allow for travel and goods transportation between Europe and the Persian Gulf in one continuous stretch for the first time ever.

“Turkmenistan adheres to the principle of multiplicity in the transport of its oil and gas resources to world markets,” Gurbanmyrat Begmuradov, Chairman of Turkmenistan’s state-owned Halkbank, said at the annual meeting of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Kiev.

The line, from the Kazakh city of Uzen to the northern Iranian city of Gorgan via Turkmenistan, will start transporting up to 5 million tonnes of goods per year, Begmuradov told a panel.

Russia already connects to Kazakhstan by rail.

read more…

Sphere It