ST. PETERSBURG, June 20. /TASS/. Amid the escalation of the Middle East conflict, Russia will still honor all agreements on the North-South international transport corridor, Igor Levitin, Presidential Aide, Special Representative for International Transport Cooperation, told TASS.
"Nothing is changing, it [the North-South highway] has always been a priority for us," Levitin said.
According to Levitin, all agreements on railway construction "remain in force. I do not know if it [the North-South highway] is being [bombed] or not. But everything we’ve agreed on, we are not changing anything," he added.
The Intergovernmental Agreement on the creation of the international multimodal North-South transport corridor was signed by Russia, India and Iran in 2000 to attract transit of cargo flows from India, Iran and the Persian Gulf countries through Russian territory to Europe. Later, the number of participants expanded to 14.
Compared to the sea route through the Suez Canal, this corridor will cut the time and cost of delivery by more than half. Now the project unites several different transport systems of individual states.
Israel launched a military operation against Iran on the night of June 13. The Islamic Republic retaliated less than a day later. In the next few days, the two countries exchanged blows again. Both sides reported deaths and injuries, and admitted that some targets on their territories were hit.