Russian Railways Holding Company (RZhD) holds talks with representatives of Azerbaijan and Iran on the issue of completing the construction of Rasht (Iran) - Astara (Iran) railroad section. Russian Railways deputy head Sergey Pavlov said this during a plenary session at the international export forum "Made in Russia," TASS reported.

"Yes, indeed Resht-Astara is a serious obstacle for today to connect the railway route in a single chain. Of course, we need this line. And now, as Alexey Logvinovich (Overchuk, Russian Deputy Prime Minister) said, we are in very intensive negotiations with the Iranian side and with the Azerbaijani side in order to launch this route," he said.

Pavlov stressed that Russian Railways jointly with "Russian Railways Logistics" already use the route Resht-Astara within the framework of multimodal transportations.

The length of the line Resht-Astara will be 170 km. The aim of the project is to connect overland sections of the international transport corridor (ITC) "North-South", which will increase the economic efficiency of the trans-Caspian route. It is assumed that the Resht-Astara line will be built with the participation of Moscow and Tehran, and the line Astara (Iranian city) - Astara (Azerbaijani city) - with the participation of Moscow, Tehran and Baku.