Silk Road to link Caspian port of Turkmenbashi and Romanian Constanta on the Black Sea
Romania has to use all opportunities of the Constanta port to become one of the important links of the transport-transit corridor between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, stated the state Secretary of the Romanian Foreign Ministry Maria Magdalena Grigore at the session of the Turkmen-Romanian working group on transport, held last week in Turkmenbashi. Deputy foreign Minister Vepa Hadjiev co-chaired the meeting on behalf of the Turkmen side. According to the Romanian official, in the options of cargo freight, Constanta can become the European port for goods, coming from Turkmen port of Turkmenbashi, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in the context of the capacity of the EU market to introduce goods from Turkmenistan and other Central Asian countries. Moreover, within the framework of its presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2019, Bucharest intends to make every efforts to promote the project of the Caspian Sea - Black Sea corridor in the relevant structures of the European Union. Following the meeting, the parties signed a Protocol, which reflects the plans to develop cooperation in the field of maritime, road, air and rail transport. The document also confirmed the determination to intensify political and diplomatic efforts to sign in the future a Political Declaration on the creation of the Caspian-Black sea transport-transit corridor. There are also plans to hold quadripartite talks with the participation of Azerbaijan and Georgia in the near future. The joint Turkmen-Romanian working group, which is engaged in the elaboration of optimal transport routes using the advantages of the ports of Constanta and Turkmenbashi, was established on the basis of the Memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of transport, signed in October 2012.
