Corridor War: the stakes rising

On Monday, Iran and India signed a 10-year contract for the development and operation of the Iranian port of Chabahar. Today.az reports, citing Day.az, that through this port, India plans to transport cargo to Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asian countries, bypassing the Pakistani ports of Karachi and Gwadar. According to the Indian side, this deal "opened up new trade opportunities and increased the sustainability of supply chains throughout the region."

The more trade routes there are, the better, probably. But only if the projects serve the interests of development, not naked competition, and are consistent with regional realities, not someone's ambitions and political sympathies. The deal concluded by Iran and India is given too much importance; meanwhile, the logistics route created in this way is not global in nature and allows the political ambitions of the signatories to be satisfied. India, as an opponent of Pakistan, expects to leave it aside from regional transit. The Indians also expect to play the American game and embrace the importance of the Chinese initiative "One Belt, One Road",  pulling the blanket of Eurasian logistics over themselves. Here it is worth recalling another ambitious project - the IMEC Economic Corridor, a memorandum on which was signed last September during the G20 summit by the United States, India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, France, Italy, and Germany.

We will talk about IMEC a little later, but for now, we note that the document signed on Monday by India and Iran is presented differently by different parties. Armenian media claim that the project will become part of a non-existent North-South corridor running through Iran, Armenia, and Georgia to the Black Sea. Russian and Azerbaijani media see the existing North-South corridor running from the Persian Gulf through Iran and Azerbaijan and further to Russia as part of the transit. The BRICS TV website claims that the new trade route is designed to transport goods from India and the Persian Gulf countries to Western and Northern Europe through the territories of Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia, including by connecting the railways of these three countries.

However, India's task at the moment is to enter Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan and ousting China from the Central Asian market. With access to Europe, it seems to be in no hurry yet due to the lack of necessary infrastructure. The modernization of the Chabahar port will cost about $ 400 million, while the construction of transport and logistics infrastructure in the northern and western directions will require billions. In principle, Turkey could provide it with opportunities to move west, and the railway infrastructure of Azerbaijan can provide logistics in the northern and north-western directions. But here, political sympathies and antipathies come into play.

In November last year, it was reported that Armenia is negotiating to join the Iranian port of Chabahar, as it seeks to gain access to India and other Asian countries and connect this route to the North-South ITC.

There has been talk about a corridor from the Persian Gulf to Europe through Armenia for a long time, but it still does not exist. The difficult mountainous terrain of the country makes it unprofitable to lay a railway that could provide efficient freight transportation. Therefore, the Armenian North-South option was originally planned as a 556-kilometre highway from the border with Iran to the border with Georgia. Work began in 2009. At the beginning of 2024, that is, in 15 years, only 31 kilometres of track had been laid. There is no need to talk about the exit through Armenia to Russia at all, since the only way to the north is the road through Upper Lars, which barely copes with the flow of goods and passengers from the countries of the region itself.

A week ago, the Government of Armenia and the EBRD signed a loan agreement in the amount of 236 million euros. This amount will be provided for the construction of part of the 60-kilometre Sisian-Kajaran road as part of the 4th tranche of the North-South highway corridor. In general, the construction of this road will require 708 million euros, and the 556-kilometre Armenian segment of the MTK has already risen in price to $ 3 billion. The corridor was supposed to be fully commissioned back in 2019, but now the deadlines for the completion of only one section of Sisian-Kajaran have been postponed until 2032.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has the infrastructure necessary for trans-regional transit. There are modern railways and motorways. To connect the railways of Azerbaijan and Iran, only a small section of Rasht-Astara is missing, the construction of which takes Iran many years. There are no other serious disadvantages of Azerbaijani transit. Work on the modernization of the Georgian section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway corridor has recently been completed, and cargo transportation along the BTK will resume on May 20. The expansion of the Georgian section will increase the capacity of cargo transportation from 1 million to 5 million tons per year. In addition, Azerbaijan has an extensive network of highways with convenient terrain, and carriers will not have to depend on a single mountain route that Armenia is able to provide. All this infrastructure can effectively facilitate transit from East to West, and from South to North and West.

If India is ready to wait for the transit of its goods to the North and West until 2032, then its current movements are in no way related to economic necessity, but pursue only geopolitical goals. Moreover, these goals are dictated from the outside. Of course, Delhi itself is interested in nullifying China's projects and depriving Turkey of the historical status of a Eurasian trade hub. But it does this as part of broader plans to "contain China" and knock out the Middle Corridor it supports.

Now is the time to return to the IMEC project, which was agreed upon by the United States, India, the European Union, and a number of Arab and European countries. The deal was concluded in the year of the 10th anniversary of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, which is hardly accidental. According to the plan lobbied by the Americans, Indian goods were to be sent from the port of Mumbai to Jebel Ali in the UAE, and then transported via Saudi Arabia by train to Israel, in order to be transported by ships from Haifa to the European ports of Piraeus (Greece), Marseille (France), and Messina (Italy). During the G20 summit, serious pressure was exerted on Italy, which maintained close economic ties with China, and as a result, in December 2023, the only major EU country in the Chinese project refused to participate in the Belt and Road.

The corresponding memorandum was signed in September 2023, before the Middle East broke out. When normalisation between Israel and the Persian Gulf countries began in 2022, the idea of creating the so-called "Indo-Arab-Mediterranean Corridor" appeared. Relative peace has come to the region, and it seemed to someone that the Middle Corridor would no longer be needed. However, October 7 broke out, and the situation in this space escalated so much that only a pathological optimist can talk about de-escalation today. The conflict that broke out nullified the enthusiasm of the initiators of IMEC. Although, according to experts, the project was doomed to fail even without aggravation in the Middle East, the project looks beautiful only on paper, but when you try to put it on real ground, it becomes clear that it is difficult to implement. Let's leave aside the political aspects. There is no appropriate infrastructure in the countries of destination. In Greece, for example, the railway system is very poorly developed, and in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the railway will have to be built from scratch. And after all, an electric cable, a pipeline with green hydrogen, and other infrastructure are planned. In addition, it will take several years just to design such a long route, and whether it will come to construction is a big question.

In addition, the IMEC deal without the participation of Turkey, which historically has been and is a place of intersection of trade routes from Asia to Europe, raises questions. After signing the memorandum on IMEC, Turkish President Erdogan announced plans to create a trade corridor with the participation of Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, an alternative to the India-Middle East-Europe corridor. "There can be no corridor without Turkey," Erdogan said. It cannot be and most likely will not be.

It is undeniable that the most profitable for Europe, of course, was transit from Asia through Russian territory. But now this is impossible because of the war in Ukraine and sanctions, and relations are so damaged that the United States does not allow the European Union to open borders with the Russian Federation, even if it is vital for Europe. In such a situation, the most realistic alternative, and the one that already exists, looks like the Middle Corridor passing through Azerbaijan. And if we are talking about the countries of the Persian Gulf and India, then it is the Azerbaijani segment of the North-South MTK, integrated with the South-West route through the BTK. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, it has been invented for a long time. Again, if India is ready to wait until 2032, and Europe agrees to destroy relations with China and wait for the end of the war in the Middle East, then there are no questions. By the time the construction of the 24-kilometre section of the Sisian-Kajaran road is completed, stability in the Middle East will probably come. What's left to wait there - some eight years...

Currently, a process is unfolding in Eurasian space that can be called the corridor war. And characteristically, its generator is located overseas. The United States does not lose anything from the problems created by unhealthy competition in regional logistics, on the contrary, they receive economic bonuses and, at the same time, the opportunity to implement a grandiose plan to "contain China." The same intrigues were woven centuries ago around the Great Silk Road, over which many people fought and blood was shed for control. Today, the United States wants to control the way from Asia to Europe. Stillborn projects of new corridors serve this purpose. India has been chosen as an alternative to China. The latter, in turn, promised transit to its new and completely meaningless from the point of view of efficiency "strategic partner" in the person of Armenia.

Meanwhile, for trade between East and West, the Middle Corridor is the only stable one, far from the hot zones and secured by good relations between all countries along the route. There can be no objections. China, Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkiye are a belt of peace capable of ensuring safe trade and development. And also to build relations with the North and South, which is an additional guarantee that no political games will endanger transit and turn the corridor into a subject of speculation. Integration, rather than competition of corridors, will be able to provide benefits to everyone.

However, the West wants to develop those international routes that will be under its control. Meanwhile, geo-economic processes are developing according to their own logic. There are fewer and fewer people who want to understand this logic.