China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan will build a railway bypassing Russia

At the summit in Xi’an, China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan signed a tripartite document on the next steps in the construction of a railway bypassing the territory of Russia. Thus, these countries may have a shorter route to Europe, bypassing Russia, which has come under international sanctions. This was reported by the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty.

Initially, the agreement on the construction of the new road was concluded on September 14, 2022, as part of the SCO summit held in Samarkand. The new document will define the next steps of project implementation, such as the development of detailed design, research and definition of the investment and financing model.

As specified by Eurasianet.org, the railway will start at the Torugart Pass in Kyrgyzstan, where there is already a railway branch from China, and will pass north through the settlements of Arpa and Makmal to Jalal-Abad, where it will connect with the railway network of Uzbekistan.

• The “Central Asia-China” summit was held in Xi’an on May 18-19. In addition to the Chinese leadership, the presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan took part in it. This is the first full-scale meeting between China and the five leaders of the Central Asian countries in 31 years. On May 19, the head of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, and the presidents of the countries of Central Asia adopted the Xi’an Declaration on Mutual Support.