After a brief halt, India accelerated the work on Chabahar Port early this year and the strategic Iranian port is expected to be operational by next month, a Congressional report has said.
In 2015, India agreed to help develop Iran’s Chabahar Port and an associated railway that would enable India to trade with Afghanistan, the independent Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in its latest report for the members of the US Congress.
Prepared for the lawmakers for them to take informed decision, the report, running into nearly 100 pages, said that in May 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Iran and signed an agreement to invest $500 million to develop the port and related infrastructure.
Even though the Trump administration gave India the “Afghanistan reconstruction” exception from its punitive Iranian sanctions, India largely stopped work on the project until late 2020.
“It accelerated work in early 2021 and the port is expected to be declared operational no later than May 2021,” said the CRS report.
CRS reports are prepared by experts and are not considered as official report of the US Congress.
