BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 21. The Russian Foreign Ministry considers the development of transport corridors and communications in the region with the participation of Azerbaijan and Russia, Trend reports.
Deputy Director of the Fourth Department of CIS countries of the Russian Foreign Ministry Mikhail Kalugin told reporters on the sidelines of the fifth session of the Russian-Azerbaijani Expert Council in Baku that the flagship project is the North-South International Transport Corridor (ITC), an important one for the region and relations between Russia and Azerbaijan.
"This project is more than 20 years old, but in the last two years it has been in an active phase of implementation, in particular, in the direction of creating a powerful western branch of the ITC, which runs from Russia through Azerbaijan to the south of Iran," Kalugin said.
He noted that this corridor will globally connect the Arctic territories of the Russian Federation with the southern countries of Iran and India.
"Now there is a dense dialog with each of the 14 countries participating in the North-South ITC. In particular, Russia and Azerbaijan have recently agreed on a roadmap for the modernization of existing routes and the construction of new ones. The same close interaction is also taking place with the Iranian side. Azerbaijan is also consulting with Iran to complete the western branch of the North-South ITC," Kalugin said.
Touching upon the development of the Middle Corridor, the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Azerbaijan positions itself as a transportation and logistics hub.
"The indicators of cargo transshipment demonstrate the success of this or that transportation corridor. Everything is determined by logic and logistics," Kalugin noted.
He also emphasized that unblocking all communications in the South Caucasus will benefit everyone.
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