"As for what we will lose, we primarily supply food products, and I do not think that these events will affect this in any way. The population must be fed in any case. The country is large. The only thing that naturally worries us is logistics. The only railway that leads to the south passes through Iran. There are no other railways," Zhumangarin said on the sidelines of the Senate.
The minister added that Kazakhstan does not transport much on this road, since Iranian railways are not in the best condition.
"But we had big plans in this regard, in principle. Therefore, we will monitor the situation. Trade turnover with Iran last year amounted to about $350 million, this year in five months we traded 120, or something like that," said the deputy prime minister.
According to Zhumangarin, Kazakhstan has backup logistics options in case the conflict is long-term.
"We have a backup option: we can go through Georgia, the TMTM route, we can go through Chinese ports. This complicates logistics a little, but if this really turns out to be a long-term consequence, we will think through options," he explained.
It is too early to make predictions, the minister added. Kazakhstan is waiting to see how the situation will develop.
“We still hope that peace agreements will be reached,” the speaker concluded.
Photo source: picture from an open source