"We should see the trains moving in about 18 months because it's a small distance," Nasser Al-Asadi, transport advisor to the Iraqi prime minister, told Reuters.
Iraq hopes to complete its first railway link with neighbouring Iran within 18 months, largely to help facilitate the transport of millions of pilgrims that visit Shi'ite Muslim shrines in Iraq each year, a senior transport adviser said. The roughly 30-kilometre (18.64 miles) line will run between Iraq's southern city of Basra and the Iranian border-town of Shalamja, linking nations with ties that have deepened since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, after which pro-Tehran Shi'ite Muslim parties enhanced their influence in Baghdad. He added the government also planned a metro link between Karbala and Najaf, the seat of Iraqi Shi'ite clergy.