Development Road Project is one of the projects that has been discussed between both Iraq and Turkey with the aim to connect the Arabian Gulf to Europe.
The project will go through 11 Iraqi governorates, including the Kurdistan Region which consists of land roads, railway and ports, stretching from Iraq and Turkey with the aim to transit of goods received at an Iraqi commodities Gulf port facility in Basra to European markets.
On April 23, at the presence of the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Turkish President Receb Tayyib Erdogan, Iraq, Turkey, UAE and Qatar signed a preliminary agreement to cooperation on the Development Road project.
Qatar’s Minister of Transport Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti, and the UAE’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, were present to sign the agreement.
The Iraqi PM in his speech during the Development Road conference held in Baghdad described the project as a pillar of the sustainable non-oil economy and a link that serves Iraq’s neighbors and the whole region.
He added that this promising project will take Iraq to an economic partnership with neighboring countries and the region, which will make the country a source of modern industries and goods, and in all of this it will rely on multimodal corridors, with more than 1,200 km of railways and highways.
According to the Iraqi government assessment the project would cost USD 17 billion and will be constructed in three phases, with the first phase to be completed in 2028, the second phase in 2033 and final phase is scheduled to be completed by 2050. When complete, the project will facilitate an overland route between Europe and Gulf Cooperation Countries.
The Iraqi Ministry of Transport in a statement following the signing of the agreement said that “the outlines for the framework of implementing the Development Road project aim to stimulate economic growth and enhance regional and international cooperation through economic integration.”
According to the graphics published following the signing of the Development Road project, the highways and railroad will have to cross through Zakho district in the Kurdistan Region and it is not clear whether other areas of the Kurdistan Region will be linked to the project. The Kurdistan Regional Government has not made any official statement regarding the project yet.
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