Amid growing trade, Iran sees need for bigger border bridge with Armenia

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS. A bigger bridge must be built on the Armenian-Iranian border to accommodate higher trade turnover, Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Mehdi Sobhani has said.

“The existing bridge on the [river] Araks is not enough, we must built a new one in order to increase cargo clearance. We have a lot of work to do, and a very bright future awaits us,” Sobhani told reporters.

He said the bigger bridge is needed to reach the volume of the outlined trade turnover.

Sobhani also touched upon the importance of building the Agarak-Kajaran section of the North-South road.

“First of all, the volume of our trade turnover amounts to 700 million dollars, and the leaders of the two countries have outlined the bar on increasing trade to 3 billion dollars. In order to be able to reach that goal we must create infrastructures. Thus, construction will contribute to reaching that goal. When the 32km road section from Agarak to Kajaran is completed, the driving duration will be reduced from 1 hour 20 minutes to 20 minutes. The width of the road will become 18 meters from 6 meters. Naturally, we will be able to promote transport traffic in that section, after which there will be the issue of the Kajaran tunnel, and the 62km part from Kajaran to Sisian,” he said, adding that the construction of the infrastructures will increase the quantity of cargo trucks by several hundred per day.