BAKU, February 28. /TASS/. The project on creation of the North-South international transport corridor will definitely be implemented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference following talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov on Tuesday.
"I would prioritize the agreement in principle between our leaders [Russia and Azerbaijan] on coordination of steps on creating the North-South international transport corridor, the implementation of other infrastructure projects in the region, which will raise its geopolitical importance, and on various forms of deepening cooperation in the fuel and energy sector," the minister said. "I think those plans that will definitely be implemented as all those, on whom it depends, have respective willpower to do so, will seriously increase the role of the region in the global politics and economy," he stressed.
Russia, India and Iran inked the intergovernmental agreement to establish the North-South multimodal transport corridor in 2000. The number of participants later climbed to 14. The project’s goal is to attract transit cargo flows from India, Iran and Persian Gulf states via Russian territory to Europe (in comparison with the sea route through the Suez Canal, the distance is more than halved, which reduces the time and cost of transportation). The project currently unifies several transport systems of individual countries.