Trans-Afghan railway to connect Uzbekistan with Pakistan

Pakis­tan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan will sign a joint protocol on Tuesday (today) to connect the Uzbek rail network with Pakistan Railways. The route for this connection will pass through Termiz in Uzbekistan, Mazar-i-Sharif and Logar in Afghanistan, and culminate in Pakistan via the Kharlachi border crossing in Kurram. This route was finalised in a meeting of a trilateral working group of the three countries on the Uzbekis­tan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (UAP) railways project, in Islamabad on Monday. This was the second meeting of the working group since January this year. The Ministry of Rail­ways, in an announcement following the meeting, stated that the UAP railway project would not only facilitate regional, transit, and bilateral trade among­­st participating countries, but would also provide better people-to-people connections in the entire region.