During the talks held in early September 2025, the heads of the transport ministries of Turkmenistan and Iran agreed on joint actions and the development of a roadmap aimed at increasing the volume of cross-border freight transit to 20 million tons per year, including up to 6 million tons transported by rail.
The Iranian side proposed accelerating the creation of the China – Kazakhstan – Turkmenistan – Iran railway corridor based on the ECO Transit Transport Framework Agreement (TTFA), ratified by the parliaments of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey in 2006, as well as the international “Ashgabat Agreement” corridor, designed to connect the countries of Central and South Asia with the Persian Gulf.
The parties agreed on measures to increase the capacity of the Sarakhs and Inche-Burun border crossings to 400 and 150 wagons per day, respectively, to boost the volume of transit freight flows along the “North–South” ITC, as well as to resume passenger transportation on the Mashhad (Iran) – Mary (Turkmenistan) route. The launch of the Lotfabad border terminal and the introduction of tariff discounts will make it possible to increase the transit freight flow by 170–200 thousand tons per day. In the longer term, through the modernization of the Sarakhs border crossing infrastructure, it is planned to increase the capacity of bogie exchange operations to 600 wagons per day.
According to the roadmap signed by the parties in May 2025 and aimed at increasing interstate trade volume to USD 3 billion per year, it is planned to establish free trade zones in Sarakhs and Lotfabad.
