TEHRAN – A new section of the Khaf-Herat railway project has been launched to link Khaf in northeastern Iran to Rozanak in Afghanistan’s Herat Province, IRNA reported.

The inauguration ceremony of the strategic railway section took place in a ceremony on Tuesday afternoon with officials from both sides in attendance.

The managing director of the Afghanistan Railway Organization, deputies from Afghanistan’s Foreign Trade Ministry, the special representative of Iran’s Ministry of Transport and Urban Development, the governor of Khorasan Razavi Province, and officials from the Iranian Embassy in Afghanistan were among the attendees of the ceremony.

The inaugurated railway is part of the 222-kilometer-long Khaf-Herat railway project which started in the fiscal year of 2007-2008 to connect Iran’s eastern city of Khaf to Afghanistan’s western city of Ghoryan.

The Khaf-Herat railway is part of a broader 2,000-kilometer-long East-West railroad running through China, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey to Europe.  

This railway provides landlocked Afghanistan access to the high seas via Iranian ports in the northern country.

The construction project of the railway had been stalled due to the government changes in Afghanistan, but it was completed last year and the first Iranian cargo train arrived in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

The railway was mainly implemented by the Islamic Republic of Iran under a tripartite agreement between Iran, Afghanistan, and India, in order to use the capacities of Iran’s Chabahar port for expanding trade exchanges with Afghanistan.

The project was implemented in four parts, Iran was in charge of completing three of the mentioned four parts, two of which are in the Iranian territory and the other two are on the Afghan side.

EF/MA