ASTANA — Kazakhstan and Iran formalized reciprocal port access agreements and reaffirmed a joint target of 20 million tonnes of annual cargo on the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) on June 16, 2026. Kazakhstan's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin and Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development Farzaneh Sadegh met in Astana to announce the developments.

Under the agreements, Iran allocated a plot at Shahid Rajaee Port in Bandar Abbas for a Kazakh logistics terminal. Kazakhstan offered Iran port space, berths, and terminals at its Caspian ports of Aktau and Kuryk.

The announcement follows meetings among senior railway officials from China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Turkiye. In May 2025, officials convened in Tehran and approved competitive tariffs and agreed delivery times for the corridor connecting these nations to Europe. A second meeting occurred in Beijing in August 2025, leading to a multilateral agreement signed in Istanbul in November 2025.

Other infrastructure projects have proceeded alongside these talks. In February 2026, Russia and Iran agreed to construct the 162-km Rasht-Astara railway link with an expected timeline of 48 months. Kazakhstan joined the INSTC in September 2003 and the Ashgabat Agreement in 2015. The Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway was inaugurated in December 2014. In October 2015, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran agreed on uniform tariff rates for container trains from China. The railways of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Russia agreed on uniform container-kilometer rates in 2022. In 2023, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Russia signed a memorandum to establish a joint logistics operator.

The Strait of Hormuz has been closed since March 2026. Cargo transportation along the North-South corridor increased by 12 percent in 2025 to 3.5 million tonnes. Railway freight between Kazakhstan and Iran rose by 69 percent in 2025. Bilateral trade turnover between the two nations reached $430.2 million in 2025, a 26.4 percent increase from 2024. Trade turnover was $340.3 million in 2024, $165.2 million in 2023, $521.4 million in 2022, and $440.1 million in 2021. Kazakhstan returned to a trade surplus with Iran in 2025 after running a negative balance in 2023 and 2024.

Kazakhstan exported over 1 million tonnes of grain to Iran between September 2024 and August 2025, compared to 86,000 tonnes in the preceding marketing year. From January to March 2026, barley exports totaled $33 million, accounting for more than half of all Kazakh exports to Iran during that period.