New Delhi : India, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan will hold their first quadrilateral meet on the joint use of Chabahar port later this year, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, in his media briefing in answer to queries on the Chabahar port, said that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, at the July 16 meeting on connectivity in Tashkent, had highlighted that India has taken practical steps since 2016 to operationalize the Chabahar port “and that its efficacy is now clearly proven”.
“India has proposed to include the port in the framework of the International North South Transport Corridor and has welcomed the formation of the India-Uzbekistan-Iran-Afghanistan Quadrilateral Working Group on the joint use of Chabahar port.
“The meeting is likely to take place in the later half of this year,” the spokesperson added.
He also added that since December 2018, Chabahar port in Iran has handled 134 vessels, 14,258 TEUs of containers and more than 2.08 million metric tons of bulk and general cargo.
India, Iran and Uzbekistan had held a trilateral meeting on the joint use of Chabahar Port in December last year, and had invited Afghanistan to join the grouping.
India has helped in developing the Chabahar Port in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan Province on the Gulf of Oman. It is located 72 km from Pakistan’s Chinese-constructed port of Gwadar.
The Chabahar port is a route to transport goods to Iran, and also Afghanistan and Central Asian countries, bypassing Pakistan.
India is developing two terminals at the port including the Shahid Beheshti complex.
UNI
