Tehran: Iran is taking efforts to become a major railway crossroad connecting Central Asian countries, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, China, and Russia. We are republishing the following article on the issue, written by Paul Goble:
The United States and other Western countries have worked long and hard to marginalize Iran as punishment for its transgressions on the international stage. Nevertheless, Iran’s neighbors as well as states further out, including Russia, China and the Central Asian republics, understand that their plans to establish strategically important north-south and east-west regional transportation routes will depend on the development of Iranian railways and the integration of its domestic rail system with bordering countries. Tehran and its supporters are also aware of that fact, and they are increasingly moving below the West’s radar to change the map of the region (see EDM, February 20). In that light, a series of new Iranian expert opinions is especially noteworthy.
Those aforementioned remarks by Iranian analysts were, in fact, prompted by the recent opening of a railway linking Haf, in northeastern Iran, to Herat, in western Afghanistan.
According to several Tehran-based scholars, that development opens up new “strategic prospects” for Iran far beyond only Afghanistan.
Indeed, they insist, the new railway “is one of the most important national and international projects, which not only increases the economic and transportation ties between Iran and Afghanistan but also increases stability and security, creates possibilities for job creation, and improves the economic situation of the entire region.” Some even suggest the rail link can eventually enable the rise of a new, Iranian-led cultural community in this part of the world (IRNA, December 10). –Agencies
