Turkmenistan scraps $700m Iran railway deal

Turkmenistan has scrapped a $700 million contract for an Iranian company to build a key section of a major new railway line along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, state media said on Saturday. Turkmenistan decided to annul the contract with Iran’s Pars Energy Company, signed in January 2010, at a cabinet meeting chaired by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, state newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan announced. Pars Energy had won the $696 million contract to build the Turkmen stretch of the new 900 kilometre (550 mile) railway that is to link Kazakhstan with northern Iran through Turkmenistan. From gulftoday