The President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, being in Karshi as part of his election tour in the provinces, talked to journalists, where he spoke about the fate of the Termez-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway, given the situation in Afghanistan.
“This is a very serious issue. Recently, our Foreign Minister held talks in Afghanistan, now the Afghan officials will arrive in Termez, we will continue negotiations. Regardless of which government comes to Afghanistan, if it cares for the interests of the people, the economy, it will be convinced of the urgent need of this project," he said.
According to him, the leadership of the Taliban also expressed interest in this project, but is faced with a problem - most countries do not recognize the new government, and such a large project cannot be completed without funding. The President added that "it would be good to return the frozen reserves of Afghanistan and channel them to the needs of the people."
Shavkat Mirziyoyev also stressed that currently Afghanistan "suffers from day-to-day problems, the population is now facing hunger, and to maintain stability, the country must survive the coming winter without losses." “The explosion in the mosque is also not a good signal, it intensifies the hostility,” he added.
“As for the fate of the [Trans-Afghan Railroad] project, we are trying to implement it by all means. Because this railway is very important for many countries. Many states have lowered transit tariffs for us for a reason when we just started the project,” the president said.
In June this year, during a trip to Surkhandarya, Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that the Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway would become one of the largest projects in Uzbekistan’s history. “I call this the project of the century,” the president said at the time and announced Russia's joining to the project.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the SCO summit on September 17 proposed to unfreeze Afghan funds in foreign banks, taking into account the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. Earlier, in August, the reserves of the Central Bank of Afghanistan for billions of dollars were frozen by the US to prevent the funds from going to the Taliban.
