The first-phase of Chabahar port was inaugurated by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday, the port located in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province will open up a new strategic transit route among Iran, India and Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan.

“We are happy that the first wheat shipment for Afghanistan has been sent to the country’s people via the Iranian port,” Rouhani said, according to IRNA news agency.

The port’s inauguration comes more than a month after the first consignment of wheat from India to Afghanistan was sent via Chabahar – the first shipment after the trilateral agreement to develop the port as a transport and transit corridor between India, Iran and Afghanistan was signed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Iranian and Afghan Presidents Rouhani and Ashraf Ghani, respectively, in May last year.

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The port opens a new strategic transit route between Iran, India, Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations bypassing Pakistan.

India has committed to the $500 million to the Chabahar port. The first-phase of the Chabahar port project is known as the Shahid Beheshti port.

The USD 340 million project was constructed by a Revolutionary Guard-affiliated company, Khatam al-Anbia, the largest Iranian contractor of government construction projects. It involved several subcontractors, including a state-run Indian company, and brings the capacity of the port to 8.5 million tonnes of cargo annually, from the previous 2.5 million tonnes.

The project in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province was inaugurated in a ceremony attended by 60 foreign guests from 17 countries, including Indian Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan, at the port located by the Sea of Oman.

Located 645 km to the south of Zahedan, the provincial capital city, the only oceanic port of Iran will now link its Sistan and Baluchestan provinces to Central Asia and Afghanistan.

The Chabahar port is likely to ramp up trade among India, Afghanistan and Iran in the wake of Pakistan denying transit access to New Delhi for trade with the two countries.

According to an Indian External Affairs Ministry statement issued in New Delhi, Radhakrishnan represented India in the second meeting of the India-Iran-Afghanistan ministerial-level trilateral meeting on Chabahar port development on Sunday.

“In the trilateral meeting with Iranian Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi and Afghan Trade and Commerce Minister Humayoon Rasaw, the three sides reviewed and positively assessed the progress in the development of Chabahar port and reiterated their commitment to complete and operationalise the port at the earliest that would contribute to bilateral and regional trade and economic development and also provide alternate access to landlocked Afghanistan to regional and global markets,” it said.

Swaraj’s unscheduled visit

Ahead of the inauguration, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made an unscheduled visit to Tehran on her return from Russian city of Sochi where she had attended the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Swaraj met her Iranian counterpart Javed Zarif held a meeting on Saturday in Tehran and discussed about the Chabahar port project among other issues.

The deal between India and Iran is seen as a strategy to counter China’s development of Gwadar port in Pakistan, barely 100 km from Iran’s Chabahar region.

(With agency inputs)