Yerevan /Mediamax/. Russia and Iran signed today an agreement on cooperation in financing the designing, construction and supplies of goods and services for the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway in Iran.

The document was signed with the participation of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who joined the ceremony via video link.

The Iranian president described the agreement as “a big and significant step” and noted that this corridor will work in the interests of all countries in the region.

Vladimir Putin said that the Iranian Rasht-Astara railway will be used to supply food to the countries of the Persian Gulf and Africa.

“Implementation of the Rasht-Astara project is only the beginning of work on a systematic increase in the capacity of the railway routes of the North-South transport corridor. Interaction in the context of the creation of this corridor is carried out in close partnership with Azerbaijan. And we look forward to the soonest completion of the preparation in a trilateral format with the participation of the Azerbaijani side of the agreement on cooperation in the development of railway infrastructure and cargo transportation along the North-South route,” Putin said.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak noted that Russia will allocate an interstate loan in the amount of 1.3 billion euros for the implementation of the Rasht-Astara project. The total cost of the project is 1.6 billion euros.

He noted that the section between the cities of Astara and Rasht with a length of 162 km is not enough to completely close the railway communication through the territory of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.

“Once this project is implemented, we will have an end-to-end route, the possibility of delivering products both in transit to Europe and deliveries from Russia to the Persian Gulf. In fact, this is a global change in transport logistics routes, the largest infrastructure project,” Novak emphasized.