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Middle-East Railway to Connect Afghanistan with Europe
[Tolo News] European countries are in an effort to establish a business link with Afghanistan using middle-east railway networks.
Sounds like high-speed targets...
At a conference on railway networks in Tajikistan on Tuesday Tadeush Shozda, Chairman of Organisation for Railway Cooperation, said Turkmenistan railway network is a suitable way to ship civilian commodities to Afghanistan.
But not military supplies? Still, that's one way to make sure foodstuffs don't rot, waiting to cross the Pakistani border.
Because of transit problems in Uzbekistan the European countries are looking into ways other than Uzbekistan to ship their products to Afghanistan, Tadeush Shozda said.

Tadeush Shozda said there are legal transit papers but European countries face some sort of problems to get their civilian goods transported through Uzbekistan's soil.

But railway officials in Uzbekistan see railway traffic as the only factor behind the problem.

Officials said more than 160,000 tonnes of commodities are shipped to Afghanistan through Uzbekistan.

Work on a railway initiative that will connect Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and China is in progress and primary estimation has put the cost of the project at more than three billion dollars.
Posted by: Fred 2011-04-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=320858