LATTAKIA, Syria, June 5 (UPI) -- Syria shipped its first cargo of goods via a rail system from the port city of Lattakia to Iraq under the terms of a bilateral agreement.
Damascus has moved to increase its regional trade presence recently as part of an effort to engage the broader Arab community.
Damascus sees its Mediterranean ports as a key link to European markets in the wake of a series of bilateral energy deals with Iraq.
Baghdad and Damascus recently reached agreements to open the 500-mile Kirkuk-Banias oil pipeline from oil fields in northern Iraq to the Syrian port of Banias.
Shipments from the Lattakia port left Wednesday for Iraq under the terms of a bilateral memorandum of understanding in the transport sector, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reports.
Yarub Badr, the Syrian transport minister, said the measure was an important step in the efforts by Damascus to boost its economic ties to the region. The rail link, he added, went a long way to establishing a land route for trade development as it was the first time Syrian ports were linked to the Persian Gulf.
An expanded rail link to the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr and other southern ports would be completed by 2010.
