Chahbahar Port Project-Agreement between India and Iran, big blow to China and Pakistan

Amid the tension with Pakistan, Iran has made preparations to defeat it on the diplomatic front also. During the recent visit of Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, both the countries have come close to an agreement on this ambitious project.

During his visit, Jaishankar held extensive discussions with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Chahbahar port and North-South connectivity. The issue of construction of this port has been pending between the two countries for a long time. It came into limelight in 2017 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Tehran.

India has finalized the Chabahar Agreement at a time when the Middle East is going through great turmoil and relations between Iran and Pakistan are tense. International naval trade waterways are under threat. The US and Britain are continuously attacking Houthi rebel positions in Yemen to eliminate disruptions to the smooth movement of commercial ships through the Red Sea.

Chahbahar Port is a connectivity project located in Sistan Baluchistan province in the south-eastern part of Iran, under which Chahbahar Port is being developed in collaboration between India and Iran since 2003 on the Gulf of Oman. It has two main ports, but India will develop only one of the two, namely Shaheed Beheshti Port. An investment agreement of $8 billion was signed between the two countries on this project. It is being developed as a transit route for Afghanistan and Central Asia. Apart from India and Iran, Afghanistan is also involved in the project. In January 2016, the three countries signed a trilateral economic agreement to develop the port.

Plans have been drawn up to build a 628 km long railway line to Zahedan and then more than 1,000 km long tracks to Sirakhs on the Iran-Turkmenistan border. However, work on it came to a halt due to the change of regime in Afghanistan and US sanctions on Iran and the domestic politics of the affected countries.

According to the Indian Commerce Ministry, freight transportation through Chahbahar port and International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) will be 30 percent cheaper than the Mediterranean-Suez route. Natural gas from Central Asia can be brought to India through Chahbahar port. India is already part of projects like the TAPI gas pipeline originating from the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan.

The Chahbahar project will end the dominance that China has created in the region regarding connectivity through the CPEC project with Pakistan.