Representatives of Moscow, Tehran and Baku agreed to create a working group on freight transport within the international North-South transport corridor and inspected border and customs terminals on the Russian-Azerbaijani and Azerbaijani-Iranian borders, the representative of the government of Dagestan at the trade mission of the Russian Federation in Iran, Andrei Tanayev said, Azernews reports.

“We held a trilateral meeting at the expert level in Derbent between the Russian, Azerbaijani and Iranian delegations and inspected customs and border points," Tanayev said.

According to Tanayev, a total of 27 people took part in the meeting at the expert level, 9 from each side. The Russian delegation was headed by the Director of the Department of State Policy in the Field of Automobile and Urban Passenger Transport of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation Sergei Semenov; the delegation also included representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation, and the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport.

The Russian authorities expect that the North-South corridor can become an alternative to the Suez Canal, allowing for an end-to-end route for supplies both in transit to Europe and from Russia to the Persian Gulf.