 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Hao Zhou Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday that the construction of a railway between the Iranian city of Khaf and the Afghan city of Herat was being discussed, according to the Tehran-based Press TV. The Khaf-Herat railway would serve as an extension to the Silk Road railway network linking Central Asian countries with Europe, Mottaki said. In 2006, Iran came up with an ambitious plan to construct a railway to connect three Persian-speaking countries - Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan - and this new railway would be connected to the larger network. Iran started the construction work in 2008 to extend its Khaf-Torbat Heidariyeh Railway, known as the Eastern Civilization Railway, to Herat, a western Afghan city located 125 kilometers away from the Iran-Afghanistan border. Tehran faces many difficulties in extending this railway farther than Herat, said Zhou Rong, an Islamabad-based researcher on Central and South Asian issues. "Afghanistan is still at war, and if this railway is extended to Tajikistan, it must run through the Pashtun areas controlled by the anti-Iran Taliban," Zhou said. "The security costs would be very high." It's no more than a "political will" to build a railway to link Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Zhou said, adding that the idea is "not viable, economically or technically." |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
