Iran, Azerbaijan start building bridge on border river

Iran and Azerbaijan have started construction works for a major motorway bridge over the border river of Aras amid plans to set up a new transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its enclave of Nakhchivan through the Iranian territory.

A Wednesday report by the IRIB News said that Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Qassemi and Azerbaijan’s Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev attended a virtual meeting earlier in the day that marked the start of construction works for the bridge on Aras.

The report said that the motorway bridge will be 220 meters in length and 25 meters wide and will finish in 18 months.

The Aras River runs for hundreds of kilometers along the borders between Iran and both Armenia and Azerbaijan.  A report by the Iranian transportation ministry said that the new bridge will be constructed in the Agbend region in southwest Azerbaijan.

It said that the bridge is part of a project to establish a corridor inside Iran and along the Armenian border that will connect Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan.

Such a corridor became necessary after a war between neighbors Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020 which resulted in the liberation of Azeri territories formerly occupied by pro-Armenia forces.

SS