The Messenger, Georgia
April 10 2009

Iran-Armenia railway construction memorandum signed

By Messenger Staff
Friday, April 10

On April 3 the Iranian and Armenian Governments signed a memorandum on
constructing Iran-Armenia connecting railways. The formal signatures
of Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and his Iranian counterpart
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, which are required before the project is
implemented, will be affixed during Sarkisian’s visit to Tehran later
this month.

The memorandum states that the railway will be 470 kilometres long, 60
kilometres of which will be in Iranian territory and 410 in
Armenia. The project will be implemented in three stages, a
feasibility study, route mapping and construction. The first two
stages will take approximately one and a half years, the construction
itself taking 3 to 4. Approximately USD 2 billion could be needed to
implement the project and negotiations are underway with the World
Bank, Asian Development Bank and other possible stakeholders.

Iran has stressed that this project will not hinder the implementation
of the concurrent Iran-Azerbaijan-Russia railway project and these two
projects will not compete with each other. On the Armenian side,
Minister Gurgen Sarkisian states that the railway will make it
possible for Armenia to reach Central Asian countries and Iran to
reach the Black sea ports of Georgia, and thus Europe.

The Minister added that there is also the option of connecting Armenia
with Russia though Georgia and Abkhazia, and connecting Iran with
Europe via Armenia and Turkey is also possible. These projects however
are very expensive and are low priorities at this time of world
financial crisis, thinks Director of the Armenian Caucasus Institute
Aleksandre Iskanderian.