Executive Summary:
- Given the military escalation in the Middle East and the intensifying conflict with Islamabad, the Lapis Lazuli Corridor remains a viable alternative for Afghanistan to access global markets via Central Asia and the Caucasus.
- Extending the Lapis Lazuli Corridor to Pakistan will enable Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and some Central Asian countries to participate in transit traffic between Southeast Asia and Europe, thereby strengthening their geopolitical significance.
- A land transport corridor from India to Europe via Afghanistan, the Caspian Sea, and the South Caucasus could potentially diminish the transit role of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on north–south routes.
On March 15, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation organized the shipment of eight cargo exports via the Lapis Lazuli Corridor to Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Australia, and the European Union (Ariana News, March 15). The Lapis Lazuli Corridor, which runs from Afghanistan to Europe, was launched in 2018 and is of particular interest to Türkiye, one of the project’s initiators (CGTN, December 14, 2018). Ankara views this initiative as an opportunity to diversify export routes to Afghanistan and other South Asian countries while effectively realizing its own transit potential. Turkish transport policy designates the Lapis Lazuli Transit Corridor as an additional route of the Middle Corridor (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed March 31). Running from the Afghan border towns of Aqina and Torghundi through Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, it provides access to the Eurozone via Türkiye’s land and sea borders.
The Lapis Lazuli Corridor enables diversification of delivery routes for Afghan goods to global markets, reducing dependence on Iranian and Pakistani transit routes. In the context of military escalation in the Middle East and intensifying conflict with Islamabad, this flexibility allows Kabul to maintain transport links with its foreign trade partners.
Goods travel to Europe along the Lapis Lazuli Corridor in just over two weeks using a combination of road, rail, and sea transport (The Times of Central Asia, January 1, 2019). This route is more effective than sea routes via the Pakistani port of Karachi on the Indian Ocean, but slower than overland supply chains through Iran.
To ensure the Lapis Lazuli Corridor operates more efficiently, it needs improvements in infrastructure, the harmonization of tariff policies, simplified procedures for moving goods across national borders, and optimization of transshipment costs. These issues are on the agenda of ministerial meetings on the Lapis Lazuli Corridor (Orient, October 4, 2024). There is also a focus on enhancing the corridor’s transit appeal by extending it to Pakistan. Participating countries will have the opportunity to engage in transit traffic between South Asia and Europe, thereby strengthening their geopolitical significance. India’s trade with the European Union alone exceeds 180 billion euros ($207 billion). In 2025, the parties concluded a Free Trade Agreement that will further stimulate cargo traffic between these two economic centers (European Commission, January 27).
Islamabad announced its readiness to join the Lapis Lazuli Corridor project as early as 2016 (Dawn, November 26, 2016). This development is expected to boost interregional trade, in which Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan view themselves as key beneficiaries.
During the Economic Cooperation Organization summit in Khankendi, Azerbaijan, on July 2, 2025, officials from Afghanistan and Azerbaijan discussed the prospects for developing trade traffic along the South Asia–Caucasus–Europe route (Alemarah, July 2, 2025). This highlighted the parties’ commitment to a strategic partnership within the framework of extending the Lapis Lazuli Corridor, which will particularly facilitate increased mutual trade.
A transit corridor stretching from the Indian subcontinent to Europe via Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus has the potential to compete with the Belarus–Russia–Kazakhstan–Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–Indian Ocean Ports transport corridor. This route is being developed under Tashkent’s leadership as an alternative to the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) (see EDM, January 15, October 16, 2025). The initiative is linked to the construction of the Trans-Afghan Railway (Kabul Corridor) along the Termez–Naibabad–Maidanshahr–Logar–Kharlachi route, with a projected capacity of up to 20 million tons per year (Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, October 16, 2025). Extending the Lapis Lazuli Corridor to bypass Uzbekistan would likely reallocate intercontinental transit flows in favor of Turkmenistan, and this extension could extend to both South and East Asia. In this context, it is worth mentioning the emerging Five Nations Railway Corridor (FNRC), which is designed to connect Iran with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) via Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan (The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, January 28, 2025).
In recent years, efforts to develop the infrastructure for the Afghan section of the FNRC have intensified. Kazakhstan plans to construct the Torghundi–Herat railway within two years, investing $500 million in the project (Vlast.kz, September 9, 2025). In October 2025, Afghanistan, Iran, and Türkiye agreed to jointly construct and finance a railway between the Afghan cities of Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif (Tolo News, October 24, 2025). The implementation of both projects will advance the practical development of the Five Nations Corridor. Along with the Lapis Lazuli Corridor, it could subsequently form part of a new east–west transit route.Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and EU countries will gain an alternative route to the PRC via Afghanistan. This will undermine the transit positions of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for freight transport to both the PRC and the South Asian region. To prevent this, Tashkent is considering establishing a transit corridor connecting India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Türkiye, and the European Union, as well as a logistics chain connecting the PRC, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Türkiye (Ma’no, July 19, 2025).
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