TEHRAN - Omid Rahimi, an expert on Central Asia, says that transit and geo-economy can improve the relations between Tehran and Tashkent to a strategic level.

The remarks by Rahimi comes as Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev made an official trip to Iran on June 18 at the head of a senior political and economic team.  Mirziyoyev was the first Uzbek president to visit Iran in more than 20 years. 10 cooperation agreements and memoranda of understanding were inked during the joint meeting of the high-ranking of the two countries. 

Pointing to the strategic position of Uzbekistan in the region, Rahimi said the country is geographically located in the heart of Central Asia and neighbors all four other Central Asian republics as well as Afghanistan, and this is considered a unique advantage in terms of geography.

“At the same time, geo-cultural features should be added to this specific geographical location due to the role and position of the Uzbek ethnicity in the entire Central Asia region. This situation has also caused Uzbekistan always to be central to important regional developments,” Rahimi told the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations that Uzbekistan in an interview published on June 19.

Recalling that during the Soviet period, Tashkent was also the centers of making important regional decisions, he said today, due to the changes that have taken place in Uzbekistan since 2017, this country is also crucial in other ways.

Uzbekistan has launched deep and extensive reforms which has made it an inspiring model for development, the expert said, adding the Central Asia country of has adopted an open-door policy.

A close relationship and partnership with a country that plays such a role in the Central Asia region and at the Eurasian level will naturally have many benefits, Rahimi pointed out.

Regardless of important areas such as security and stability in Afghanistan, “economy” is the most important linkage between Tehran and Tashkent, the analyst said.

He said economy had been the main driver of bilateral interactions between Iran and Uzbekistan in recent years and the main goal of reforms by Uzbekistan is economic development, and in this sense, economic and commercial relations are highly important in the country’s foreign policy.

Rahimi went on to say that Iran is seeking to draw up a roadmap for economic cooperation with Uzbekistan.

“Recent trends also show that we have witnessed a growth and even a serious leap in the bilateral relations between Iran and Uzbekistan in recent years,” the expert remarked.

Noting that the two countries’ economies are complementary, Rahimi said economic and trade ties between the two states can reach 2 billion dollars in the short term as mentioned in the recent joint economic commission meeting in Tashkent.

Uzbekistan is a producer and exporter of important and strategic products such as gold, various textiles, including cotton yarn and cloth, legumes, chemical industries, copper and various metals, automobiles, and many new industrial products that have a relatively large market in Iran, he explained.

He added that Iran could also supply part of Uzbekistan’s needs, such as petrochemicals, horticultural and agricultural products, polymers and plastics, industrial machinery, and similar sectors.

According to Rahimi, if preferential trade agreements, transit agreements, monetary and financial exchanges, and other things are activated through bilateral or multilateral mechanisms such as ECO and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), “we can witness the development of available capacities” given that Uzbekistan is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and an observer status in the EAEU.

Pointing to the importance of transit cooperation between Iran and Uzbekistan, Rahimi said Uzbekistan is located in the heart of the land-locked Central Asia, and access to open waters is strategically important for the country.

For this reason, he said, during the last five years the country has initiated various transit projects, including the ‘trans-Afghan’ corridor, which connects Central Asia to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan.

Rahimi went on to say that Iran has been one of the traditional and strategic routes for Uzbekistan to access open waters, the markets in Persian Gulf countries and West Asian countries, such as Turkey and Iraq.

During his visit to Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the Uzbek president that “Iran has the capability to conveniently connect Uzbekistan to international waters through Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.”

Rahim said the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan-China rail corridor to Urumqi is being implemented with the agreement of the three countries and if it is completed, a short access to China will be provided for Iran.