Лев и дракон: новый этап китайско-иранского стратегического партнёрства

Southern corridor between Kazakhstan, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia. China actively lobbied for the construction of a southern corridor in the EU, with the participation of Kazakhstan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, which was to be joined by the German railway operator Deutsche Bahn. The logistics itself was as follows: from Constanta (Romania) the freight train was to be delivered by sea to the Georgian port, and from there by rail to the Astara station (Azerbaijan), and then by trucks they were to be delivered to the Iranian Gazvin station, and from there by rail to Tehran [19].

After the Iran’s nuclear deal, and following the lifting of international sanctions, China allocated two credit facilities worth US $ 4.2 billion to finance high-speed rail lines and connect Iran's major cities, including Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan [71].

Iran is attracting a US $ 2.4 billion Chinese credit line to build the Tehran-Isfahan high-speed railway. US $ 1.8 billion for the project has been provided by the Export-Import Bank of China, and the work will be carried out by the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC), with which Iran signed a contract to build the first high-speed line in Iran in 2015 and agreed to provide a loan in July 2017. Trains will run on a 375-km line at speeds ranging from 300-350 km/h. Work on a circuit that will connect the Iranian capital with the international airports of Imam Khomeini, Qom and Isfahan is due to be completed in 2021 [58; 41]. 13

In August 2019, Iran and China signed a contract to implement a project to electrify the 900-km main railroad `linking` Tehran with the northeastern city of Mashhad. There are plans to build a Tehran-Qum-Isfahan high-speed train line and expand this modernized network northwestward through Tabriz. Tabriz should become a powerful hub for a number of key oil and gas and petrochemical facilities, as well as a starting point for the Tabriz-Ankara gas trunkline (MGP). Tabriz should become the most important base on Iranian territory for the 2,300-km NSR which will run from Urumqi (Xinjiang) to Tehran through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and then through Turkey to Europe [16].