On 22 July, the Azerbaijani Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, Ramin Guluzade and the Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Mohammad Eslami, discussed the issues of joint transport project implementations on the sidelines of the Elecomp exhibition held in Tehran, reported trend.az.
The sides discussed the construction of a highway between the Iranian and Azerbaijani Astara region, a joint border bridge and a new cargo terminal to link the network of motorways of Azerbaijan with the Iranian project Rasht-Astara. The Astara-Rasht-Qazvin railway project envisages the construction of a new railway line in Iran, which will connect Astara in Azerbaijan to the Iranian cities of Astara, Rasht and Qazvin as well as the reconstruction of an existing railway in Azerbaijan. The project is planned to be completed in 2021. The railway is a part of the North-South corridor, which is planned to connect India with the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Europe.
Parallel to the meeting of the two ministers of transport the Iranian Deputy Minister for Roads and Urban Development and the Managing Director of Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran Saeid Rasouli came to Baku in order to hold discussions with the Director of Azerbaijan Railways Javid Gurbanov. The discussed topics were the improvement of the single window system in the Astara customs checkpoint and cooperation in the railway sector, especially on the Rasht-Astara railway.
Guluzade attended the Iranian Digital Economic Forum. He also participated in a meeting between sectoral ministers of Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Turkey where the prospects of multilateral cooperation were discussed in the field of information and communications technology (ICT). The current ICT agenda for the cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran includes telecommunications and postal cooperation, intensification of experience exchange, regulation of radio frequencies in the border areas, cyber security, space industry, and the use of Iranian satellite resources, mobile communications and internet services in Azerbaijan.
