Ghani And Modi To Visit Tehran For Chabahar Agreement
MEP: President Ashraf Ghani and Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister are expected to visit Iran next week to sign a tripartite agreement on Chabahar port.
President Ghani is scheduled to land at Tehran’s airport next Monday (May 23) while Modi will arrive one day earlier.
Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s President is hosting the trip of the two leaders, according to informed sources.
Based on a predetermined program, a tripartite agreement in the presence of ministers of the three countries: Afghanistan, Iran and India will be signed.
Chabahar Port
The port of Chabahar is one of the commercial areas in the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan and is counted as the country’s [only] Ocean port which is located in the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean. Its marina has the capability of mooring ocean-going vessels, and is of the free Zones of Commerce.
The port due to strategic location, is the closest way to access the landlocked member states in Central Asia (Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) to open waters has a great importance which takes a lot of builders and investors.
The importance of Chabahar to Afghanistan
Chabahar port is the closest and cheapest way to the sea for Afghanistan. Using the port will reduce the country’s dependency to Pakistani ports.
Pakistan has politically grassed Afghanistan many times using the dependency and at different times of strained relations between the two countries, has closed its port on Afghanistan.
With the Chabahar port, the Afghan investors will be able to transfer its trade and transit property to the country with less expenses and from there will transit to Central and South Asia.
