Shafaq News<\/p>\n
On official maps, the Grand Faw Port looks like Iraq’s gateway to
\nthe world. The starting point of a trade corridor meant to move goods from the
\nGulf to Europe roughly 20 days faster than traditional shipping routes. On the
\nground, however, successive Iraqi governments have been drawing different
\nlines.<\/p>\n
Even as Baghdad pours billions of dollars into building the port The project Baghdad has promoted as the pillar of its ambition to A Line Begins with Pilgrims and Ends with Cargo<\/p>\n The Grand Faw Port<\/a> project dates back to 2006, when the Iraqi The logic was straightforward: ships arriving from Asia and the Success depended on one core condition: protecting Faw from rival In 2023, then-Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani<\/a> laid the But the engineering specifications later raised questions about its Weeks ago, a similar scenario unfolded through a different gateway. A Twenty-Year Delay<\/p>\n In an interview with Shafaq News, retired Major General Jamal According to al-Halbousi, the Shalamcheh and Khosravi lines could He warned this route could become a “mercy bullet” for Al-Halbousi views Faw and the Development Road together as the real First proposed some twenty years ago, the project remains stalled Read more: Rebuilding Basra\u2019s maritime power: Is Al-Faw Port the game changer for Iraq?<\/a><\/p>\n An Old Iranian Ambition through Iraq<\/p>\n The idea of rail links with Iran did not begin under al-Sudani. It To the south, Kuwait is pursuing a similar link between Iraq’s rail International transport expert Ziyad al-Hashimi told Shafaq News \u201cThe priority should be establishing direct shipping lines to Iraqi As for the Kuwaiti link, he said it could pull part of the maritime
\nand the Development Road stretching toward Turkiye, it has simultaneously
\npushed forward rail links connecting Iraq to Iranian and Kuwaiti ports, links
\nthat would allow goods arriving from neighboring countries to enter Iraqi
\nterritory without ever passing through Faw<\/a>. <\/p>\n
\nbecome a global transport hub now finds itself boxed in by competing corridors
\ncreated by Iraq’s own decisions.<\/p>\n
\ngovernment first proposed building a strategic deep-water port in the country’s
\nfar south, capable of receiving mega-vessels and linked to what later became
\nknown as the “Dry Canal”, a network of highways and railways running
\nfrom Basra to Turkiye, with potential branches toward Syria and Europe.<\/p>\n
\nGulf would dock at Faw, then move their cargo overland across Iraq to Turkiye
\nand Europe, bypassing the longer route through the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and
\nthe Mediterranean. Through this corridor, Iraq hoped to reclaim its historic
\nrole as a crossroads between East and West, generating revenue from handling,
\nstorage, transport, insurance, and logistics.<\/p>\n
\ncorridors and avoiding new rail lines that would hand neighboring ports a
\ndirect route into Iraqi markets or onto the network feeding Turkiye and Syria.
\nThat condition was never met.<\/p>\n
\nfoundation stone for a rail link between Basra and Iran via the Shalamcheh
\nborder crossing. The government presented it at the time as a line dedicated to
\npilgrims and travelers rather than freight, in an apparent effort to ease
\nconcerns about its impact on Faw and Iraq’s other ports.<\/p>\n
\ntrue purpose. The line’s load-bearing capacity, known technically as “axle
\nload”, reaches 25 tons, a specification typically used for heavy freight
\nlines, compared with roughly 14 tons for standard passenger lines. For critics
\nof the project, these were not simply engineering figures but evidence that a
\nline launched under the banner of pilgrim transport was designed from the
\noutset to carry freight trains as well.<\/p>\n
\nDuring a visit by current Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to Tehran, the two sides
\nsigned an agreement to build a new rail line through the Khosravi crossing
\nopposite Diyala province. Officials and lawmakers quickly began discussing
\nusing the line to move both pilgrims and goods. Iraq now faces two potential
\nrail links tying its domestic network directly to Iran, one in the far south
\nnear Faw, the other in the center via Diyala.<\/p>\n
\nal-Halbousi, an expert in borders and international transport, argues that the
\nShalamcheh rail project was less a purely Iraqi necessity than the product of
\npolitical pressure, adding that the project was introduced as a pilgrim line
\nbefore evolving into one capable of moving freight. <\/p>\n
\neventually allow goods arriving at Iranian ports such as Bandar Abbas and Imam
\nKhomeini Port, and possibly Pakistan’s Gwadar port, to reach Iraqi territory
\nand continue toward Syria and the Levant \u201cwithout ships ever needing to call at
\nFaw.<\/p>\n
\nFaw if the port project is not completed quickly and if the government fails to
\nadopt policies making Iraqi ports more competitive. \u201cPorts do not compete on
\ngeography alone, but on handling and storage fees, customs speed, logistics
\nquality and inland transport costs; if Iraqi ports remain costlier than their
\nneighbors, international shippers will simply choose the cheaper route.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nfoundation for turning Iraq into a regional transport and trade hub. The
\nDevelopment Road envisions a modern rail line and highway stretching roughly
\n1,200 kilometers from Faw to the Turkish border, passing through Basra, Dhi
\nQar, al-Muthanna, al-Diwaniyah, Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad, Saladin and Nineveh
\nbefore reaching Turkiye and, from there, European markets. <\/p>\n
\namid administrative problems, corruption allegations and delays in contracting
\nand execution. Specialists talked to our agency say the core problem is not
\nmerely the pace of building berths or dredging the shipping channel, but the
\nabsence of an integrated system linking the port to rail lines, roads,
\nindustrial zones, warehouses, and border crossings, without which a port
\nbecomes little more than a container drop-off point.<\/p>\n
\nsurfaced clearly in 2014, under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s government,
\nwhen Tehran pushed for a line connecting Basra to Iran’s Imam Khomeini Port and
\nextending across Iraq to Syria’s Latakia port, a part of a broader vision of a
\nland-and-rail corridor linking Iranian ports to the Mediterranean, using Iraqi
\nterritory as the middle link. If completed, such a route would let cargo
\narriving at Iranian ports cross into Syria via Iraq without ever passing
\nthrough an Iraqi port, meaning Iraq would supply the land, rails, security and
\ninfrastructure while handling revenue flows to another country’s ports.<\/p>\n
\nnetwork and Mubarak al-Kabeer Port, raising comparable concerns: if Basra
\nbecomes directly connected to the Kuwaiti port, goods could be unloaded in
\nKuwait and enter Iraq by rail instead of via Faw or Umm Qasr.<\/p>\n
\nthat any rail link with neighboring states could hurt Faw if it is not embedded
\nin a comprehensive Iraqi strategy. Shipping companies, he said, will gravitate
\ntoward whichever ports offer the best service at the lowest cost, and direct
\nlines moving goods from Iranian or Kuwaiti ports into Iraq could reduce the
\nneed to unload ships at Iraqi ports at all, weakening handling volumes and the
\nbroader trade activity tied to storage, transport, insurance and maritime
\nservices. <\/p>\n
\nports and linking Faw and Umm Qasr to the domestic transport network by rail
\nand road,\u201d he argued. At the same time, al-Hashimi cautioned that turning the
\nIran-Iraq lines into a full international trade corridor is not a foregone
\nconclusion, since some Iranian ports still lack strong, integrated rail
\nconnections to the Iraqi border, \u201ca weakness that buys Iraq time but does not
\nremove the long-term risk, particularly if Iran completes its domestic projects
\nand links its ports to the Shalamcheh and Khosravi crossings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ncargo flow toward Mubarak port, especially if Kuwaiti ports become a
\nredistribution hub for goods into Iraq and the wider region. Any new line, he
\nstressed, should be assessed not only for its construction cost or bilateral
\nbenefits but for its impact on the strategic position of Faw and Iraq’s other
\nports.<\/p>\n