TEHRAN- Railway delegations from Iran, Russia and Republic of Azerbaijan signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) on reducing common rail transit tariffs by 50 percent, in a trilateral meeting in Moscow on Tuesday.

The MOU seeks getting north-south transport corridor, which is expected to connect northern Europe to Southeast Asia, fully operational, IRNA reported.

During the meeting, the participants agreed on activation of the corridor for transporting goods from Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Lithonia, Estonia, Finland, to the Persian Gulf and India and vice versa.

They also accorded on the common rail tariff for the year 2017 as well as the time duration needed for transportation of goods through the corridor.

During the meeting, a member of board of directors of Islamic Republic of Iran Railways Hossein Ashuri noted that after 14 years from the time when Iran, Russia and India accorded on launching the north-south corridor, a cargo train transported goods from Mumbai to Moscow through Iran’s Bandar Abbas and Astara, in 2016, by cooperation of the Azeri and Russian railways.

As he added, according to the held talks in the meeting, the corridor will be fully operational in 2017 and hopes are high that other countries including Finland, Estonia, Lithonia and Belarus will join the corridor in future.

North-south corridor will connect the north hemisphere to the south. It will link the railway networks of Finland, Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran with those of Pakistan and India.

HJ/MA