Afghanistan connects Central Asia to West Asia and Europe

The recent TIR operation from Iran to Tajikistan highlights Afghanistan’s role as a critical TIR transit country, knitting together a web of new trade opportunities between Turkey and Europe via Iran as well as from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China.

Since Afghan-Pakistani meetings in Istanbul in September 2018, Afghan transport operators have performed several TIR transport operations with their neighbouring countries, such as Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

The plan is to extend these further to Turkey and other Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan. 

IRU encourages more Afghan operators to join and use TIR, to fill the current transport gap in the region and to benefit from the opportunity. 

This recent operation follows previous transports made from Iran to Pakistan via Afghanistan, and others from Pakistan to Tajikistan via Afghanistan since September.