Türkiye and Iraq agree to begin building the trans-Türkiye–Iraq Development Road, linking Iraq with Türkiye and Europe. A signing of the agreement held on July 30 was witnessed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and was signed by Türkiye’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu and his Iraqi counter-part, Wahab Salman al-Hassani.
The two documents constitute a framework agreement to build a 1,200 kilometer corridor, also known as the Development Road project, from the Fishkhabur-Ovaköy border crossing in Türkiye to Grand Faw Port. The latter is a new deep sea port on the Persian Gulf and is the first phase of this mega-project which also foresees the building of an industrial zone.
The corridor incorporates railway, highway, energy transmission, and communications links. Uraloğlu said that the priority would be to build the railway at an estimated cost of about $15 billion. The planned railway corridor will pass through Türkiye and cross the recently completed Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge in Istanbul, where preparations are underway to add a railway access to and across the bridge
