Turkmen president orders to construct Atamyrat-Imamnazar railway line
By Aynur Jafarova
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has addressed the regional administration of the Lebap region, where he issued a number of instructions for the construction of the Atamyrat-Imamnazar railway line, which is part of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway project, the Turkmen government said.
It is expected that the construction will be carried out by the entities of the Turkmen Ministry of Railway Transport.
The project complies with the intergovernmental framework agreement envisaging the construction of the 85-kilometer railway line Atamyrat-Imamnazar and the 38-kilometer line between Akina and Andkhoy in Afghanistan which was signed in May 2011 during the official visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Turkmenistan.
Earlier an Afghan delegation, which attended a meeting of the special coordinating intergovernmental group on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway project in Ashgabat, offered Turkmenistan to construct the Imamnazar-Akina railway line on the Afghan territory.
According to Afghan Deputy Minister of Public Works Ahmad Shah Wahid, the main investors in the project for the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway will be Ashgabat and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Wahid said the railway section passing through Turkmenistan will be funded by the Turkmen government and the Afghan and Tajik sections are likely to be financed by the ADB.
Wahid said merging the railroad to a larger regional railway system is planned in the future. This will not only allow linking the region's countries, but will also provide access to more distant countries, such as China and Iran. He did not exclude the possibility of involvement of other countries in the financing of this project, such as Iran.
Implementation of the joint infrastructure projects will be a powerful impetus to further development of the Afghan economy and successful solution of important social issues, including those related to employment.
Moreover, the implementation of this project will contribute to the diversification of Turkmen and Tajik transport corridors, as well as usage of the transport and communication network of the Central Asian, Caspian and Black Sea regions.