The third meeting of the working committee of the countries participating in the Agreement on the Establishment of an international transport and Transit corridor between Iran, Oman, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan is taking place in Ashgabat, on the sidelines of the transport forum, which opened on Monday.

During the meeting, the delegations exchanged information on the implementation of the activities provided for in the minutes of the previous meeting of the committee. It was stated that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible to implement most of the decisions taken. At the same time, their relevance for the continuation of joint work under the Agreement, known as the Ashgabat Agreement, was noted.

In this context, measures are being considered to eliminate various non-physical barriers in the implementation of bilateral and transit road cargo transportation, the possibility of introducing a single through tariff along this corridor for rail transport.

It is also planned in August-September of this year to organize test road, rail, container cargo transportation along the routes India-Iran-Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan and Oman-Iran-Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan and in the opposite direction to identify possible obstacles and determine delivery dates.

The Ashgabat Agreement entered into force on April 23, 2016. It was preceded by a Memorandum of Understanding, which was signed in August 2014 in Muscat (Oman) by the Foreign Ministers of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Oman. Currently, the Agreement and the Memorandum have been ratified by all four countries.

Within the framework of the current project, options for the route of the transport corridor, coordination of actions at checkpoints, and the possibility of simplifying customs procedures are being discussed.

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