TEHRAN (FNA)—After Western sanctions on Iran have blocked the completion of the north-south transport route for more than two decades, sanctions on Moscow have contributed to Russian investment in the construction of the last link of the corridor aimed at linking India and Russia via Iran.

Last Wednesday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin witnessed the signing of an agreement worth $ 1.6 billion to finance and build a 162-kilometer railway line between the cities of Rasht and Astara (northwestern Iran), to be part of a transport corridor aimed at linking Russian ports with Iranian ports overlooking the Gulf waters.

While Iran describes the agreement as "an important and strategic step in bilateral cooperation between Tehran and Moscow," Russia says the corridor can compete with the Suez Canal as a major route for global trade.

Iran's president and his Russian counterpart signed a $1.6 billion deal to finance and build a railway line (Reuters)

Facing sanctions

After Russia, Iran and India signed the first document on the corridor in 2000, Iranian observers see Western sanctions on Tehran and Moscow as a key factor pushing the Iranian and Russian sides to accelerate the completion of the project in order to circumvent sanctions.

Meanwhile, Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel commented at a press conference on Wednesday that "any project to avoid sanctions is worrying for us."

For his part, political economy researcher Farzad Ahmadi describes the Russian investment in the railway as a "late step," adding that "it is better late than never," adding that the Russian war on Ukraine increased the rift between East and West, which contributed to accelerating the completion of the "North-South" corridor.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Ahmadi believes that Western sanctions have closed the doors of Europe in the face of Russian goods, urging Moscow to invest in a "North-South" corridor to open new markets in East Asia and compensate for the markets lost in Western countries.

International challenges

The Iranian researcher attributed the reason for the Russian delay in contributing to the "North-South" corridor project to the loss of the required economic feasibility compared to trade with Western countries, and expected cooperation between his country and Russia to grow in the coming years to confront Western sanctions imposed on the two countries.

Ahmadi pointed out that about 10% of global maritime trade passes through the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, describing Russian talk about the ability of the corridor linking Russia and India through Iran to compete with the Suez Canal as exaggerated and comes to highlight the importance of the new corridor.

The corridor from the Russian city of St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea through the Caspian Sea and Iran, and the Gulf waters to the Indian Ocean is 7200,30 kilometers long, reducing the time period by up to <> days compared to the traditional passage through the Suez Canal.

Ahmadi concluded that those imposing sanctions on both Iran and Russia will work to block the transformation of the new corridor into a major route for global trade, especially in Gulf waters.

The "North-South" corridor consists of a network of sea, land and railway lines (Iranian Presidency)

Regional rivalry

In this context, economic researcher Gholamreza Moghaddam reads the project to extend the new railway (northwestern Iran) within the framework of regional and international competition, explaining that the new railway will be used in the north-south and west-east corridors linking Kazakhstan with Turkey and Europe through Iranian territory.

As for Western pressure on Russia, it is an opportunity for the Iranian side to activate the corridors disabled due to the deficit of funding, and increase its share of global trade, according to Reza Moghaddam, who explained to Al Jazeera Net that his country is long delayed in the completion of the network of corridors, and it fears at the moment of losing its geostrategic position as a result.

The Iranian researcher pointed out that there are two other corridors whose construction is in full swing in eastern and western Iran, explaining that the agreement of Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2021 on the 600-kilometer railway project that extends from Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul and Peshawar will connect Europe and Asia after its completion.

He described the Baghdad-Ankara agreement last March to link the Iraqi port of Faw on Gulf waters with Turkish territory as the second corridor that would compete with the "north-south" corridor through Iranian territory, and urged Tehran to complete it before completing the two rival corridors east and west of his country.

Reza Moghaddam concluded by saying that the capacity of the "North-South" corridor will reach about 30 million tons of goods annually after it is fully operational, which constitutes a strong boost to the Iranian economy, knowing that its current capacity does not exceed two million tons.

Although Iran announced the opening of the corridor two years ago and the transfer of a shipment of paper from Finland to India, via trucks from the Iranian port of Astara on the Caspian Sea to Gulf waters via train and then by sea to India, the project has stalled for reasons that have not yet been announced, but observers attribute the reason to the failure to complete the railway between Rasht and Astara.