The offer was made by senior Armenian officials last week during a visit to India by Armenia’s foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan.
According to reports, the proposed corridor is expected to connect Mumbai with the port city of Bandar Abbas in Iran before going on to Armenia and onward to Russia or Europe.
The Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor is slated to run parallel to the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and will bypass Azerbaijan which does not enjoy good ties with India due to its close relations with Turkey and Pakistan.
Armenia, which has developed close ties with India in recent times amid growing purchase of Indian defence equipment, has reportedly sought investment from India for the Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor in Armenian territory.
“As the new cold war disrupts Russia-West economic and political relations, any large-scale transit of cargo passing the Russia-Europe border looks too risky for the international logistic and insurance companies,” Benyamin Poghosyan, founder and chairman of Yerevan, Armenia-based Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies and senior research fellow at APRI-Armenia, was quoted as saying by ET.
“At the same time, India’s need for additional trade routes to reach Europe circumventing the Suez Canal remain valid. In parallel to the discussions around INSTC, Iran in 2016 put forward a new international transport corridor project, Persian Gulf-Black Sea, which should connect Iran with Europe via the South Caucasus. The negotiations were paused during the Covid pandemic, but all potential participants of the project – Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Greece-expressed their interest in participating,” he added.
India’s trade with Russia through the INSTC has grown since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. However, Azerbaijan is a key part of the INSTC which connects Mumbai with Russia via Iran and the Caspian Sea.
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