The inside story of Russia-Iran-India connectivity
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Bill Totten
May 29, 2023, 1:02:00 AM5/29/23
to GoogleGroups
The inside story of Russia-Iran-India connectivity
The G7 is stupefied by the dynamic progress of the multipolar order
embodied by the Russian-led INSTC and the Chinese-led BRI, with Iran's
strategic port of Chabahar now poised to play a transformative role.
by Pepe Escobar
https://thecradle.co (May 23 2023)
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/iran-russia-trading-1.jpg
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Make no mistake about what the G7's Hiroshima Communique {1} is all about.
The setting: a city in neo-colony Japan nuclear-bombed 78 years ago by
the United States, for which it made no excuses.
The message: the G7, actually G9 (augmented by two unelected
Eurocrats) declares war - hybrid and otherwise - against BRICS+, which
has 25 nations on its waiting list and counting.
The G7's key strategic objective is the defeat of Russia, followed by
the subjugation of China. For the G7/G9, these - real - powers are the
main "global threats" to "freedom and democracy".
The corollary is that the Global South must toe the line - or else.
Call it a remix of the early 2000s "You're either with us or against
us".
Meanwhile, in the real world - that of productive economies - the dogs
of war bark while the New Silk Road caravans keep marching on.
The key New Silk Roads of emerging multipolarity are China's
ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and
the Russia-Iran-India International North-South Transportation
Corridor (INSTC). They have evolved in parallel and may sometimes
overlap. What is clear is the G7/G9 will go to the ends of the earth
to undermine them.
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Map-of-INSTC.png
Map of INSTC (Photo Credit: The Cradle)
All about Chabahar
The recent $1.6 billion deal between Iran and Russia to build the
162-kilometer-long Rasht-Astara railway is an INSTC game-changer.
Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazpash and
Russia's Minister of Transport Vialy Saveliev signed the deal in
Tehran, in front of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and with Russian
President Vladimir Putin attending via video conference.
Call it the marriage of Iran's "Look East" with Russia's "pivot to the
East". Both are now official policies.
Rasht is close to the Caspian Sea. Astara is on the border with
Azerbaijan. Connecting them will be part of a Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan
deal on railway and cargo transportation - solidifying the INSTC as a
key connectivity corridor between South Asia and Northern Europe.
The multimodal INSTC advances via three main routes: the Western route
links Russia-Azerbaijan-Iran-India; the Middle or Trans-Caspian route
links Russia-Iran-India; and the Eastern one links Russia-Central
Asia-Iran-India.
The Eastern route features the immensely strategic port of Chabahar in
southeast Iran, in the volatile Sistan-Balochistan province. That's
the only Iranian port with direct access to the Indian Ocean.
In 2016, Iran, India, and an Afghanistan still under US occupation
signed a tripartite deal in which Chabahar miraculously escaped
unilateral US "maximum pressure" sanctions. That was a stepping stone
in configuring Chabahar as the privileged gateway for Indian products
to enter Afghanistan, and then further on down the road, toward
Central Asia.
Russia, Iran, and India signed a formal INSTC deal in May 2022,
detailing a multimodal network - ship, rail, road - which proceeds via
the previously mentioned three axes: Western, Middle or Trans-Caspian,
and Eastern. The Russian port of Astrakhan, by the Caspian Sea, is
crucial on all three.
The Eastern route connects eastern and central Russia, through
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, to the southern part of Iran as well as
India and the Arab lands on the southern edge of the Persian Gulf.
Dozens of trains are already plying the overland route from Russia to
India via Turkmenistan and Iran.
The problem is that in the past few years, New Delhi, for several
complex reasons, seemed to be asleep at the wheel. And that led Tehran
to become much more interested in Russian and Chinese involvement to
develop two strategic ports in the Chabahar Free Trade Industrial
Zone: Shahid Beheshti and Shahid Zalantari.
China makes its move
Chabahar is a tough nut to crack. Iran has invested heavily to turn it
into an inescapable regional transit hub. India, in thesis, from the
beginning regarded Chabahar as a key plank of its "Diamond Necklace"
strategy, counterpunching the Chinese "String of Pearls" {2}, which
are ports linked by the BRI across the Indian Ocean.
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/BRI-2.0-1980x1148.png
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Chabahar also performs the role of counterpoint to Pakistan's Gwadar
Port {3} in the Arabian Sea, the jewel in the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC) crown.
From Tehran's point of view, what is needed - fast - is the completion
of its eastern railway network, 628 kilometers of tracks from Chabahar
to Zahedan. In optimum terms, that might be finished by March 2024 as
part of the Mashhad-Sharkhs railway axis connecting Iran's southeast
to its northeast on the border with Turkmenistan.
For the moment, INSTC cargo travels to South Asia from Iran's Bandar
Abbas Port in the Strait of Hormuz - a long 680 kilometers away from
Chabahar. So for all practical purposes, Chabahar will make transit
from India to Afghanistan, Central Asia, and southern Russia shorter,
cheaper, and faster.
But once again, things stalled because India did not come up with the
expected financial arrangements. That ended up generating some
misgivings in Tehran - especially when watching the massive Chinese
investments in Gwadar.
So it's no wonder Iran decisively moved to attract China as a major
investor, which has become part of their increasingly sprawling
strategic partnership. So we may end up with Chabahar also becoming
part of China's BRI, on top of its starring role in the INSTC.
Russia, for its part, is now facing the Ukraine stalemate, relentless
Western sanctions hysteria, and serious trade restrictions to Eastern
Europe. All that while Moscow consistently expands its trade with New
Delhi.
So it is no wonder Moscow is now much more attentive to the INSTC.
Last December, a key deal was clinched between Russian Railways and
the national companies in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, and the
Russians came up with a 20 percent discount for import-export
containers going through the Russia-Kazakh border.
What matters most for Russia is that Chabahar operating at full speed
reduces the cost of transporting goods from India by 20 percent. The
Iranians fully understood the game and started to heavily promote the
Chabahar Free Trade-Industrial Zone to attract Russian investment. And
that culminated in the Rasht-Astara deal.
The Zangezur spoiler
China's BRI, for its part, plays a parallel game. Beijing is heavily
investing in the East-West transit route - also known as the Middle
Corridor {4}.
This BRI corridor goes from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, and then across the Caspian to
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkiye, and further on to Eastern Europe - a
total of 7,000 kilometers, with a cargo journey of maximum 15 days.
BRI's emphasis is to bet on multiple corridors East-to-West to fight
possible new western-dictated disruptions of supply chains.
China-Central Asia transit to Europe bypassing Russia and Iran is one
of the top bets. The BRI corridor through Russia, because of Nato's
proxy war in Ukraine, is on hold for the moment. And the Chinese are
testing all options to bypass the Maritime Silk Road through Malacca.
Turkiye, with the serious possibility of its longtime President Recep
Tayyip being re-elected this weekend, has also made its play.
The Baku-Tblisi-Kars railway, opened in 2018, was a key plank in
Ankara's masterplan to configure itself as an inescapable hub of
container freight between China and Europe.
In parallel, China invested in building a railway from Kars to Edirne
on the European side of the Bosphorus while Turkiye went for a $3.8
billion upgrade of the port of Mersin and $1.2 billion for the port of
Izmir. By 2034, Beijing expects this corridor to be the central plank
of what it describes as the Iron Silk Road {5}.
A certified spanner in the INSTC works is competition from the
so-called Zangezur Corridor - from Azerbaijan to Turkiye via Armenia;
this corridor is actually privileged by EU and British oligarchy and
came to light during the 2020 armistice in Nagorno-Karabakh.
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Azerbaijan-Armenia-conflict-1980x1199.png
Map of Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict zones (Photo Credit: The Cradle)
London identifies Baku as a privileged partner and is keen to dictate
terms to Yerevan: accept a sort of peace treaty as soon as possible,
and renounce any designs on Karabakh.
The Zangezur Corridor {6} would be the prime geopolitical and
geoeconomic Western play linking EU logistical hubs with Transcaucasia
and Central Asia. What if Armenia is thrown under the bus? After all,
Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU),
which the collective West is dying to undermine.
Fasten your seat belts: a geoeconomic New Great Game centered on the
INTSC is just about to start.
Links:
{1} https://www.g7hiroshima.go.jp/en/documents/
{2} https://thecradle.co/article-view/3738/string-of-pearls-yemen-could-be-the-arab-hub-of-the-maritime-silk-road
{3} https://thecradle.co/article-view/19049/the-saudi-iran-rivalry-stumbles-into-pakistan
{4} https://thecradle.co/article-view/19949/eurasias-middle-corridor-an-atlanticist-frenzy-to-stifle-europe-asia-integration
{5} https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/Pandemic-turns-Iron-Silk-Road-into-China-Europe-trade-artery
{6} https://thecradle.co/article-view/2383/the-iran-azerbaijan-standoff-is-a-contest-for-the-regions-transportation-corridors
_____
Pepe Escobar is a columnist at The Cradle, editor-at-large at Asia
Times and an independent geopolitical analyst focused on Eurasia.
Since the mid-1980s he has lived and worked as a foreign correspondent
in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Bangkok. He is
the author of countless books; his latest one is Raging Twenties
(2021).
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those
of The Cradle.
https://thecradle.co/article-view/25155/the-inside-story-of-russia-iran-india-connectivity
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of
https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/05/29/the-inside-story-of-russia-iran-india-connectivity/
The G7 is stupefied by the dynamic progress of the multipolar order
embodied by the Russian-led INSTC and the Chinese-led BRI, with Iran's
strategic port of Chabahar now poised to play a transformative role.
by Pepe Escobar
https://thecradle.co (May 23 2023)
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/iran-russia-trading-1.jpg
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Make no mistake about what the G7's Hiroshima Communique {1} is all about.
The setting: a city in neo-colony Japan nuclear-bombed 78 years ago by
the United States, for which it made no excuses.
The message: the G7, actually G9 (augmented by two unelected
Eurocrats) declares war - hybrid and otherwise - against BRICS+, which
has 25 nations on its waiting list and counting.
The G7's key strategic objective is the defeat of Russia, followed by
the subjugation of China. For the G7/G9, these - real - powers are the
main "global threats" to "freedom and democracy".
The corollary is that the Global South must toe the line - or else.
Call it a remix of the early 2000s "You're either with us or against
us".
Meanwhile, in the real world - that of productive economies - the dogs
of war bark while the New Silk Road caravans keep marching on.
The key New Silk Roads of emerging multipolarity are China's
ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and
the Russia-Iran-India International North-South Transportation
Corridor (INSTC). They have evolved in parallel and may sometimes
overlap. What is clear is the G7/G9 will go to the ends of the earth
to undermine them.
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Map-of-INSTC.png
Map of INSTC (Photo Credit: The Cradle)
All about Chabahar
The recent $1.6 billion deal between Iran and Russia to build the
162-kilometer-long Rasht-Astara railway is an INSTC game-changer.
Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazpash and
Russia's Minister of Transport Vialy Saveliev signed the deal in
Tehran, in front of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and with Russian
President Vladimir Putin attending via video conference.
Call it the marriage of Iran's "Look East" with Russia's "pivot to the
East". Both are now official policies.
Rasht is close to the Caspian Sea. Astara is on the border with
Azerbaijan. Connecting them will be part of a Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan
deal on railway and cargo transportation - solidifying the INSTC as a
key connectivity corridor between South Asia and Northern Europe.
The multimodal INSTC advances via three main routes: the Western route
links Russia-Azerbaijan-Iran-India; the Middle or Trans-Caspian route
links Russia-Iran-India; and the Eastern one links Russia-Central
Asia-Iran-India.
The Eastern route features the immensely strategic port of Chabahar in
southeast Iran, in the volatile Sistan-Balochistan province. That's
the only Iranian port with direct access to the Indian Ocean.
In 2016, Iran, India, and an Afghanistan still under US occupation
signed a tripartite deal in which Chabahar miraculously escaped
unilateral US "maximum pressure" sanctions. That was a stepping stone
in configuring Chabahar as the privileged gateway for Indian products
to enter Afghanistan, and then further on down the road, toward
Central Asia.
Russia, Iran, and India signed a formal INSTC deal in May 2022,
detailing a multimodal network - ship, rail, road - which proceeds via
the previously mentioned three axes: Western, Middle or Trans-Caspian,
and Eastern. The Russian port of Astrakhan, by the Caspian Sea, is
crucial on all three.
The Eastern route connects eastern and central Russia, through
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, to the southern part of Iran as well as
India and the Arab lands on the southern edge of the Persian Gulf.
Dozens of trains are already plying the overland route from Russia to
India via Turkmenistan and Iran.
The problem is that in the past few years, New Delhi, for several
complex reasons, seemed to be asleep at the wheel. And that led Tehran
to become much more interested in Russian and Chinese involvement to
develop two strategic ports in the Chabahar Free Trade Industrial
Zone: Shahid Beheshti and Shahid Zalantari.
China makes its move
Chabahar is a tough nut to crack. Iran has invested heavily to turn it
into an inescapable regional transit hub. India, in thesis, from the
beginning regarded Chabahar as a key plank of its "Diamond Necklace"
strategy, counterpunching the Chinese "String of Pearls" {2}, which
are ports linked by the BRI across the Indian Ocean.
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/BRI-2.0-1980x1148.png
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Chabahar also performs the role of counterpoint to Pakistan's Gwadar
Port {3} in the Arabian Sea, the jewel in the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC) crown.
From Tehran's point of view, what is needed - fast - is the completion
of its eastern railway network, 628 kilometers of tracks from Chabahar
to Zahedan. In optimum terms, that might be finished by March 2024 as
part of the Mashhad-Sharkhs railway axis connecting Iran's southeast
to its northeast on the border with Turkmenistan.
For the moment, INSTC cargo travels to South Asia from Iran's Bandar
Abbas Port in the Strait of Hormuz - a long 680 kilometers away from
Chabahar. So for all practical purposes, Chabahar will make transit
from India to Afghanistan, Central Asia, and southern Russia shorter,
cheaper, and faster.
But once again, things stalled because India did not come up with the
expected financial arrangements. That ended up generating some
misgivings in Tehran - especially when watching the massive Chinese
investments in Gwadar.
So it's no wonder Iran decisively moved to attract China as a major
investor, which has become part of their increasingly sprawling
strategic partnership. So we may end up with Chabahar also becoming
part of China's BRI, on top of its starring role in the INSTC.
Russia, for its part, is now facing the Ukraine stalemate, relentless
Western sanctions hysteria, and serious trade restrictions to Eastern
Europe. All that while Moscow consistently expands its trade with New
Delhi.
So it is no wonder Moscow is now much more attentive to the INSTC.
Last December, a key deal was clinched between Russian Railways and
the national companies in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, and the
Russians came up with a 20 percent discount for import-export
containers going through the Russia-Kazakh border.
What matters most for Russia is that Chabahar operating at full speed
reduces the cost of transporting goods from India by 20 percent. The
Iranians fully understood the game and started to heavily promote the
Chabahar Free Trade-Industrial Zone to attract Russian investment. And
that culminated in the Rasht-Astara deal.
The Zangezur spoiler
China's BRI, for its part, plays a parallel game. Beijing is heavily
investing in the East-West transit route - also known as the Middle
Corridor {4}.
This BRI corridor goes from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, and then across the Caspian to
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkiye, and further on to Eastern Europe - a
total of 7,000 kilometers, with a cargo journey of maximum 15 days.
BRI's emphasis is to bet on multiple corridors East-to-West to fight
possible new western-dictated disruptions of supply chains.
China-Central Asia transit to Europe bypassing Russia and Iran is one
of the top bets. The BRI corridor through Russia, because of Nato's
proxy war in Ukraine, is on hold for the moment. And the Chinese are
testing all options to bypass the Maritime Silk Road through Malacca.
Turkiye, with the serious possibility of its longtime President Recep
Tayyip being re-elected this weekend, has also made its play.
The Baku-Tblisi-Kars railway, opened in 2018, was a key plank in
Ankara's masterplan to configure itself as an inescapable hub of
container freight between China and Europe.
In parallel, China invested in building a railway from Kars to Edirne
on the European side of the Bosphorus while Turkiye went for a $3.8
billion upgrade of the port of Mersin and $1.2 billion for the port of
Izmir. By 2034, Beijing expects this corridor to be the central plank
of what it describes as the Iron Silk Road {5}.
A certified spanner in the INSTC works is competition from the
so-called Zangezur Corridor - from Azerbaijan to Turkiye via Armenia;
this corridor is actually privileged by EU and British oligarchy and
came to light during the 2020 armistice in Nagorno-Karabakh.
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Azerbaijan-Armenia-conflict-1980x1199.png
Map of Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict zones (Photo Credit: The Cradle)
London identifies Baku as a privileged partner and is keen to dictate
terms to Yerevan: accept a sort of peace treaty as soon as possible,
and renounce any designs on Karabakh.
The Zangezur Corridor {6} would be the prime geopolitical and
geoeconomic Western play linking EU logistical hubs with Transcaucasia
and Central Asia. What if Armenia is thrown under the bus? After all,
Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU),
which the collective West is dying to undermine.
Fasten your seat belts: a geoeconomic New Great Game centered on the
INTSC is just about to start.
Links:
{1} https://www.g7hiroshima.go.jp/en/documents/
{2} https://thecradle.co/article-view/3738/string-of-pearls-yemen-could-be-the-arab-hub-of-the-maritime-silk-road
{3} https://thecradle.co/article-view/19049/the-saudi-iran-rivalry-stumbles-into-pakistan
{4} https://thecradle.co/article-view/19949/eurasias-middle-corridor-an-atlanticist-frenzy-to-stifle-europe-asia-integration
{5} https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/Pandemic-turns-Iron-Silk-Road-into-China-Europe-trade-artery
{6} https://thecradle.co/article-view/2383/the-iran-azerbaijan-standoff-is-a-contest-for-the-regions-transportation-corridors
_____
Pepe Escobar is a columnist at The Cradle, editor-at-large at Asia
Times and an independent geopolitical analyst focused on Eurasia.
Since the mid-1980s he has lived and worked as a foreign correspondent
in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Bangkok. He is
the author of countless books; his latest one is Raging Twenties
(2021).
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those
of The Cradle.
https://thecradle.co/article-view/25155/the-inside-story-of-russia-iran-india-connectivity
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of
https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/05/29/the-inside-story-of-russia-iran-india-connectivity/
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages