The project to construct a shipping canal connecting the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf has become topical after imposition by the “collective West” of sanctions on the Russian Federation. What kind of project is this and how is it beneficial to Tajikistan?
The possibility of construction of this shipping canal has been discussed by Russia and Iran jointly with other Caspian littoral nations.
Speaking at the Caspian summer in Ashgabat this past summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he fully shares the proposal of his counterparts to develop the North-South international transport corridor. The shipping canal from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf is a key element of this transport corridor.
“This is truly a massive project developing the transport artery with a length of 7200 kilometers – from St. Petersburg to seaports of Iran and India,” Putin said.
He added that the development of this transport corridor aims to turn the Caspian Sea region into a major international logistics hub.
Experts consider that the implementation of this project will give Russia the shortest access to the Indian Ocean basin bypassing the Turkish straits, allow it to restore trade chains, expand them and create the modern transportation infrastructure.
Other Caspian littoral nations (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) the Indian Ocean countries and China are also interested in the development of this shipping canal and are ready to partially finance this project.
Faced with international sanctions and global isolation, Iran and Russia are seeking alternative trade routes bypassing the Suez Canal and the Bosphorus.
Though it has been two decades since Russia, Iran and India signed an agreement laying out a vision for a North-South Transport Corridor, Russia and Iran have been promoting the plan with added urgency in recent years.
Both nations are facing international sanctions and isolation on the world stage. With the doors of international commerce slammed shut to them, the two nations have made recent moves to activate the 7,200km-long ship, rail and road route through India, Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.
The first part of the route stretches from India across the Arabian Sea to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, per a July 2002 Brookings Institution report.
The second part of the route links Iran to Russia via the Caspian Sea.
A third branch of the route passes through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in Central Asia.
Some Tajik experts believe that the construction of the shipping canal connecting the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf is undoubtedly beneficial to Tajikistan because the country would access to the oceans not in the south of Iran or Pakistan, but in the west of Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan.
This position is justified quite simply and clearly — sea freight is considered the least expensive and cheapest shipping method for large packages.
However, almost all interlocutors of Asia-Plus agree that the project is untenable. There is, in particular, opinion that the West will prevent the construction of this canal in every possible way, because the construction of this shipping channel is regarded as a loophole for Russia to evade sanctions.
By the way, this project is included in the package of sanctions imposed by the European countries and the United States on Iran even at the end of the last century.
Iranroud, which means Iran River in Persian, was a plan to build a canal from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman. The former Soviet Union was eager to realize this project because its only warm water ports led to the Strait of Istanbul and the Dardanelles, which were under the control of Turkiye, a NATO country.
There were two different proposals for the route of the canal: directly to the Indian Ocean through Dasht-e Lut; from the Caspian to Lake Urmia and after that to the Persian Gulf.
The idea of linking the two coasts via Iranian territory was first introduced in the 19th century. The first professional study was carried out in the 1960s.
First time this plan has been written by Humaan Farzad in 1968. According to his plan some lake must be made between Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Three places were suggested: Jazmurian pit and two other places in Dasht-e Lut and Dasht-e Kavir.
Many years later same plan was suggested to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was prime minister at that time
The western route: roughly following the shortest air distance between the two coasts, extends over a total length of about 950 km from the northern end of the Persian Gulf to the southwest of the Caspian Sea. The canal would go south in Arvand Roud and Karun, and in the north by Sefid Roud. The mentioned river basin was partially navigable and it would be necessary to regulate the flow. In the central part, the canal would stretch through a high mountain valley with a length of about 600 km. The main advantages of the western route are the shorter distance between the seas, the passage through the Khuzestan and Guilan lowlands, the partial flow of rivers, the possibility of using more artificial lakes, and easier water supply for the damp climate and numerous watercourses. However, the major disadvantage of this route is the passage through the chains of Zagros and Alborz, especially in the Kurdistan and Hamadan provinces, where the altitude of the route would inevitably need to climb to more than 1800 meters. The Western route was mentioned solely as an option and no more detailed studies were carried out for it that specialists give a big advantage to a more flexible eastern route.
Eastern route: stretches from the shores of the Gulf of Oman to the southeast coast of the Caspian Sea, totaling between 1465 and 1600 km. This passage was first proposed by Engineer H. Farzad in 1966, and provides for channeling through the depression of Hamun-Dzaz-Murjan, Dasht-e Lut and Dasht-e Kavira. By the late 1990s, Iranian engineers for the ultimate southern destination had planned the area of Bandar Abas, more specifically the Minab Valley, and then the route shifted eastward to the Macau valleys of the Kashan River. The Russian experts, in the 2000s, independent of the Iranian, elaborated preliminary plans for the massive transitional canal, also saw Bandar Abas as the terminus.
