TEHRAN -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday discussed possible ways to strengthen economic cooperation, particularly in the field of international transit, as well as joint infrastructure projects.
In a telephone conversation, Raisi and Putin stressed the importance of improving bilateral cooperation.
Muhammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, said in a post on his Twitter account that the two presidents reviewed economic infrastructure initiatives.
“Eurasian integration is the 2nd phase of Raeisi’s neighborhood policy that includes China’s BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) & the North South transit corridor with Russia,” Jamshidi said.
He emphasized that “Iran’s geo-economic growth is the objective” of the projects.
The Kremlin said the Iranian and Russian presidents exchanged views about issues pertaining to bilateral cooperation in various areas, including the implementation of joint infrastructure projects, adding that the two leaders assessed the development of Tehran-Moscow relations as positive.
“Both sides gave a positive assessment of the level and dynamics of the development of Russia-Iran relations,” Russia’s TASS news agency quoted the statement as saying.
It noted that Raisi and Putin had agreed to maintain further contacts.
According to TASS, the International North-South Transport Corridor is one of the infrastructure projects pursued by Russia and Iran.
Iran, together with India and Russia, is pushing forward with the sea and rail corridor that could substantially reduce the time and cost of shipping goods from India to Europe.
The 7,200-km multimode route was proposed by the three countries in 2000. Later, the number of participants expanded to 14.
It envisages a network of ship, rail and road for freight transport that will cut carriage costs by about 30-60% and transit time from 40 days to about 20 days.
The goal of the project is to attract transit cargo traffic from India, Iran and the Persian Gulf through the Russian territory to Europe.
Now the project combines several different transport systems of individual states.