NEW DELHI: The first trilateral meeting between India, Afghanistan and Iran of the Coordination Council of the Chabahar Agreement took place Tuesday in Tehran.
The three-nation Chabahar Agreement envisages a transport and transit corridor connecting Iran's Chabahar Port with landlocked Afghanistan, which would allow Indian goods to be shipped not just to Afghanistan, but eventually northwards to Central Asian states. Last year, India sent two large shipments of wheat to Afghanistan through Chabahar.
The meeting is significant given the context of US sanctions on Iran, which imposes penalties on anyone doing business with Tehran from November 4. The Indian team was led by TS Tirumurti, Secretary (Economic Relations), MEA, while Iranian Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Rastad and the Afghan Deputy Minister of Transport led their two delegations.
According to a MEA release, it was decided to constitute a Follow-up committee that would hold its first meeting within two months in Chabahar Port, Iran, which would discuss and aim to finalise protocol to harmonise transit, roads, customs, consular matters for making the route attractive, decrease logistic costs and pave the way for smooth implementation of the Trilateral Agreement signed in Tehran in May 2016.
The next meeting of the coordination council will take place in India in the first half of 2019.
Afghan sources said that Rastad, who is also CEO of Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran, proposed 10 ways to ramp up regional connectivity, .including ways to tap the potential of various transit corridors like the north-south corridor, and facilitate and accelerate easy and safe access to the transit routes.