Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan Railway Project Feasibility Study Agreement Signed

Kabul:A memorandum of understanding on the feasibility study of a trilateral railway project was signed in Kabul on Thursday in the presence of the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan between the Ministry of Public Utilities of the Islamic Emirate, the Ministry of Transport of Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Railways of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar traveled to Kabul on Thursday to sign a tripartite framework agreement for a joint feasibility study of the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (UAP) railway project, also known as the Trans-Afghan Railway Project.
A statement issued by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday said that Deputy Prime Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar met with Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
During the meeting, “Pakistan and Afghanistan emphasized the need to maintain the current momentum of bilateral relations and intensify efforts to further expand mutual cooperation in the areas of trade, transit and security so that the people of both countries can benefit.”

The statement added that “the parties agreed to remain in touch to benefit from the rich opportunities for regional economic development, including the implementation of inter-regional connectivity projects.”

The Afghan Prime Minister stressed joint efforts to resolve the issues between the two countries, including the return of Afghan refugees, and said that the agreement between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan is an important milestone and the Islamic Emirate will make every effort to ensure the success of this project.

Ishaq Dar also invited the Afghan Prime Minister to visit Pakistan.
What is this project?

Preliminary work on the railway project began in late 2017, when former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani signed an agreement with then-Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The project would have built a railway line from Mazar-e-Sharif, a commercial hub in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province, to Herat.
According to an article published in the journal Eurasia, the project was planned to connect with the railway line from the city of Hairatan in Uzbekistan to Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan, which was launched in 2011, after which it would pass through Kabul and pass through the Afghan province of Nangarhar to the Torkham border in Pakistan. The route was later changed to Mazar-e-Sharif, Logar and the Kharlachi border in Kurram district.

The aim of this project is to facilitate market access to Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan, and to facilitate easy access of goods from those markets to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Following a 2017 agreement between former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Uzbek officials, a trilateral meeting was held in Tashkent in 2018, attended by officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan, and included a plan to build a railway line from Mazar-i-Sharif to Kabul.
Work on the project was scheduled to begin in 2021, but after the Afghan Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021, the project was delayed because it was not possible to fund the project and start work on it due to security conditions.