We have decided to put our three decades of shipping and multimodal transport knowledge and skills into use for developing the important International North-South Transport/Transit Corridor (INSTC), connecting the Commonwealth of Independent States (Caucasian countries …), Afghanistan, and Europe to the Persian Gulf via Iranian territory. INTSTC serves as a bridge between India and CIS, Afghanistan, Europe.

Our decision is also in line with the Ashgabat agreement which is a multimodal transport agreement between the governments of Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, India, Pakistan, and Oman for creating an international transport and transit corridor facilitating transportation of goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. The agreement came into force in April 2016. The agreement was originally signed by Iran, Oman, Qatar, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan on April 25, 2011. Qatar subsequently withdrew from the agreement in 2013, the same year Kazakhstan applied for membership, which was eventually approved in 2015. Pakistan has also joined the Agreement since November 2016. India formally joined in February 2018.