TEHRAN – During their visit in Iran on Saturday, Iranian and Afghan officials stressed the importance of the construction of a railroad line to connect the Iranian township of Sangan to Herat in northwest Afghanistan.

Es’haq Naderi, the economical advisor to the Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the director general of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways Company Mohammad Saeednejad agreed on the construction of a railroad line to speed up the rail link between the two nations. Iran has undertaken to supply 60 percent of the project costs from the funds it had previously allocated to Afghanistan reconstruction programs.

Preliminary studies for the construction of the 189-km railroad are already complete and the project is expected to be put into tender for completion soon.

About 86.8 kilometers of the railway will lie in Iran’s territory.