At the recent G20 summit held in New Delhi in September 2023, when the leaders announced the formation of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), they were very much aware that they were sending a message that this would be a geopolitical strategy for the West to counter China's BRI. As six weeks have passed since the conflict in Gaza, and the IMEC project has lost all momentum, it felt like the entire concept just evaporated overnight. Now, with the Iran war, which has been going on for six weeks, and Tehran having control over part of the Strait of Hormuz and missiles raining down on Haifa, it has done the rest.

In the meantime, some 3,500 kilometers northward, another equally vital passageway is slowly being developed. The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, commonly referred to as the Middle Corridor, connects China to Europe via Kazakhstan, through the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, then Georgia, and finally Türkiye. In 2025, container traffic through this corridor amounted to 76,900 twenty-foot equivalent units, representing a 36 percent growth over 2024. Freight operators and insurance carriers who had begun diverting shipments from the Red Sea, now threatened by the ongoing Iran war that started in late February, have quickened this process even more. The corridor serves as an insurance policy against any additional disruption of the regular maritime routes.

The problems that IMEC faces are not accidental to the ongoing situation. They are inherent in the very design of the project. The first leg of the corridor from the west demands an operational port of Haifa as an entrance point in the Mediterranean Sea, which is currently under........

© AzerNews