On April 8, 2025, the Russian Ministry of Transport announced the start of the practical implementation of the Trans-Afghan Railway. The ministry’s release noted that specialists of both countries will soon begin preparing a feasibility study for the project.
Two routes have been agreed upon: Mazar-i-Sharif-Herat-Dilaram-Kandahar-Chaman and Termez-Naibabad-Logar-Kharlachi. Everything is very clear with the latter. This is the so-called Kabul Corridor (also called Termez-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway), initiated by Uzbekistan in 2018. Since then, the project has gone through many stages of development. According to the preliminary agreement of the parties, construction of the railway from the border of Uzbekistan to Pakistan was planned to begin in the fall of 2021. However, due to the seizure of power in Afghanistan by the Taliban, the process was postponed.
The Taliban quickly resumed dialogue with Tashkent on the launch of the Kabul Corridor, while simultaneously announcing the construction of the Mazar-i-Sharif-Herat-Kandahar railway (1,468 km), which is presented as the shortest route between Moscow and New Delhi. This would lead to the creation of an alternative rail corridor transiting through the predominantly western Afghan provinces of Farah, Nimroz, Helmand, and Kandahar to reach Pakistani ports on the Indian Ocean. In a recent news report by the Russian Ministry of Transport, the route is mentioned as Mazar-i-Sharif-Herat-Dilaram-Kandahar-Chaman.
The idea of the Kandahar Corridor is in harmony with the concept of the Torghundi-Herat-Kandahar-Spin Buldak railway route, promoted by Turkmenistan in partnership with Kazakhstan. In September 2024, Ashgabat began laying the first section of the railway from Torghundi station to Herat.
Until recently, it appeared that the two Central Asian countries – Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – were implementing their own transport projects in neighboring Afghanistan. But there are important nuances in this story. The main one is Russia’s increased activity on the trans-Afghan track. Over the past year, Moscow has repeatedly expressed interest in constructing both western (from the border of Turkmenistan) and eastern (from the border of Uzbekistan) railways through Afghanistan, seeing in this an opportunity to extend its flagship project, the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), to Pakistan.
In December 2024, it was reported that Russia would participate in the preparation of the feasibility study for the Trans-Afghan Railway project. However, it was not specified which route would be taken into development.
The partnership between Russia and Uzbekistan in this transport project has raised many questions. In particular, it remains unknown whether the Uzbek-Emirati joint venture “ADL Ulanish” retains its financial participation in the project. After all, based on the agreement between the governments of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan of February 19, 2024, it was this organization that was supposed to develop the feasibility study for the Kabul Corridor. Later, at the request of Moscow, Russian Railways (JSCo “RZD”) joined the financial consortium.
In February 2025, a Taliban delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar visited Tashkent. Following the visit, Baradar reported on the intentions of Uzbekistan to extend the railway from Hairatan to Herat (a project that Tashkent had put on hold in 2017) and to finance preliminary studies on this route. This dynamic points to the possible involvement of the Uzbek side in the development of the Kandahar Route in addition to the Kabul Corridor.
The route through Kandahar can lead to both Pakistan and Iran. Since 2020, Iran has been constructing the Chabahar-Zahedan railway line, which it plans to extend to the border province of Nimroz in Afghanistan, and from there to Dilaram and Kandahar. This will provide Iran with another outlet to Central Asia via Afghanistan in addition to the Khaf-Herat railway and the transit route through Turkmenistan. This is of great interest to India, which is actively involved in the modernization of Iranian road infrastructure and the deep-water port of Chabahar (more detailed analysis is available here and here). If Uzbekistan reorients to the Mazar-i-Sharif-Herat-Dilaram-Kandahar-Chaman railway, the Indian route to Central Asia will become even more realistic.
Growing security risks in Pakistan coupled with increased conflict in Afghan-Pakistani relations may also induce Tashkent and its external partners to adjust their preferences on the trans-Afghan track in favor of the Kandahar Corridor. In this regard, it would be quite appropriate to choose a transit route that would lead to the regions of Pakistan closest to the ocean.
Uzbekistan has so far refrained from commenting on the expansion of the Hairatan-Mazar-i-Sharif railway to Herat, and its further extension to Chaman in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. It is not known which countries or organizations are being considered as potential funders of a new project, whether the idea of creating a financial consortium within the framework of the implementation of the Trans-Afghan railway corridor through Kabul (the Termez-Naibabad-Logar-Kharlachi route), in which the UAE and Qatar were expected to participate, is still relevant, and whether these countries will be involved in financing the Kandahar Railway Corridor.