Safari made the remark during a meeting with Asset Assavbayev in Tehran.

Assavbayev is the secretary general of the Permanent Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Commission of the Europe-Caucasus-Asia Transport Corridor known as TRACECA.

Safari said that Iran’s railways and roads are among the safest transit routes in the world, and there are the necessary infrastructures to use the country’s capacities for international transit of goods.

Assavbayev said that his trip to Tehran is an effort to use those capacities for the transit of commodities from Central Asian countries to Europe.

He said that with the current developments in the region, the focus is now on Iranian transit routes as the volume of commodities being transported from Central Asia to Europe via the Caspian Sea and the Azerbaijan Republic is surpassing its actual capacity.

In response, the Iranian official said that his country welcomes cooperation with TRACECA.

He also announced the Foreign Ministry’s readiness to facilitate visa issuance for drivers of TRACECA, who use Iranian transit routes.

TRACECA is a European Union program launched in Brussels in 1993. It aims to develop a transport corridor from Europe to China, via the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea.

The Islamic Republic of Iran joined the program in 2009.

Other members include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria, among others.

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