New railroads will help Ashgabat move away from excessive isolationism - analyst
MOSCOW. May 14 (Interfax) - Putting the Turkmen-Kazakh section of a Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railroad into operation will contribute to integration processes in the region, Kamilzhan Kalandarov, president of the Middle East and Eurasia center for energy and economic studies, said.
"It is possible to say that today Turkmenistan is ever more clearly showing signs of moving away from its probably excessive level of isolationism that was seen in the past," he said.
"Ashgabat is growing more and more aware of the fact that the country's successful economic development is impossible if it chooses to ignore the influence of external processes, primarily across the Eurasian space. And I would like to hope that the re-opened railroad will become a truly major route that would lead to integration," Kalandarov said.
Russian-Turkmen cooperation in transport projects holds great promise, the analyst said.
"In compliance with the agreement signed by the Russian and Turkmen sides, Moscow helped prepare the feasibility study for this project. Hopefully, as the project goes on, Russian rail transport specialists will continue enhancing their involvement in Turkmenistan because it plays a key role in the North-South railroad corridor," Kalandarov said.
"Further promoting this project and exports traffic to the East and to the West in general has been treated as a priority, which is understandable because rail transport, currently a key means of world economic communications, is an actual rival to transportation by sea," the analyst said.
However, "the extent of cooperation between Russia and Turkmenistan is clearly insufficient for a sphere such as transportation," he said.
"Typically, a rail transport representative is not even present in the Russian-Turkmen Business Council, unlike, let's say, the sphere of telecommunications, whose representative sits on this council. Meanwhile, transport cooperation is seen as even a greater priority than the sphere of telecommunications despite its importance for technical progress," Kalandarov said.
The Bolashak-Serkhetyaka section is a part of a railroad that will link Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran.
The railroad will become the shortest land route for delivering cargo to the Persian Gulf region, the analyst said.
"As was announced at a meeting of the heads of state, the opened railroad will be used to transport primarily grain, oil and petroleum products. This section will have a capacity of ten million tonnes a year," Kalandarov said.
The future railroad, which will stretch from Kazakhstan's steppe through the Karakum Desert to mountainous Golestan Province in northern Iran, will be 900 kilometers long. Turkmen territory will host its 700-kilometers section.
Specialists of the Turkmen Rail Transport Ministry continue building a 256-kilometer section, which will link the town of Bereket and Etrek administrative center, located on the Turkmen-Iranian border.
