TEHRAN (Iran News) – Azerbaijani capital city Baku hosted Friday a joint event on development prospects of “North-South” Transport Corridor—and with participation of Azerbaijani, Russian, and Iranian officials, APA reported.

The Baku Declaration—on results of the first trilateral meeting among Azerbaijan, Iran, and Russia on the development of Transport Corridor—was signed at the event.

The declaration was signed by Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev, Minister of Roads and Urban Development of Iran Rostam Ghasemi, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.

The parties stressed the importance of creating a working group to address transport and transit issues and procedures through the territories of Azerbaijan, Russia, and Iran in the context of the development of the corridor and expressed the intention to hold the first meeting within a month. Moreover, the parties intend to prepare a draft agreement on the Resht-Astara railroad project within a month, and a document that welcomes the involvement of Iran’s Chabahar port in the corridor.

The foundation of the International North-South Transport Corridor was laid on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement signed between Russia, Iran, and India on September 12, 2000. In total, 13 countries have ratified the agreement, including Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc.

The purpose of creating a corridor is to reduce the delivery time of cargo from India to Russia, as well as to northern and western Europe. The delivery time on the current route is more than 6 weeks, it is expected to be reduced to 3 weeks via North-South Transport Corridor.

According to this declaration, the parties have expressed their willingness to cooperate in the assessment and study of infrastructure and transport possibilities in order to fully use this corridor. The parties emphasized the importance of creating a joint working group, and they plan to hold the first meeting in the next month.

In addition, the parties announced their intention to prepare an agreement on the Rasht-Astara railway project within a month, and to start respective negotiations by the end of the year.

In the meeting Iranian Minister Ghasemi called to create North-South Corridor Secretariat and said, “Our countries [Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia] will be able to reach an agreement on the development of transport potential, which will be beneficial to all the three parties. The agreements reached to date can be called special, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Iran is ready to take immediate measures to achieve the development of the North-South corridor.”

“Our countries play a key role in the region. They are working to diversify transport corridors. We are working to remove barriers and also use electronic systems, which facilitate the activities. It’s necessary to simplify the issuance of visas that are not related to the process of transit of goods. Undoubtedly, we see the need to create a secretariat for the North-South corridor and connect the railways of all three countries,” he added.

Meanwhile Azerbaijan’s Minister of Digital Development and Transport Nabiyev noted that the sides exchanged views on the development of international transport and transit corridors running through Azerbaijan and Iran, including the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

“We went over the establishment of a new road transport infrastructure in the inter-state border areas, as well as the efforts to be taken in this regard. Moreover, we talked about the construction of a highway bridge across Iran, linking the East Zangazur economic region and Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, as well as the road bridge over the Astarachay river between the two countries,” Nabiyev stated.

Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran intend to build a single railway network, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Novak said during the event.

“The working group on the development of the international North-South corridor was created by the heads of our countries and its development is very important for trilateral cooperation. During the talks between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia, the parties expressed their readiness to discuss the development of Rasht-Astara, as well as the North-South,” Novak noted.

According to him, Russia is ready for the productive trilateral cooperation.