Rails of power: Inside the race to redraw West Asia’s trade map

As chokepoints come under strain, the Hejaz Railway and Development Road are driving a new challenge to US-backed corridors.

25.06.2026

By Suleyman Karan

Source: https://thecradle.co/articles/rails-of-power-inside-the-race-to-redraw-west-asias-trade-map

Global trade runs through a few narrow chokepoints – Hormuz, Suez, Bab al-Mandab. When they come under pressure, the shock travels far. War has brought that into focus. Now the shift is toward land routes.

At the center of this shift is the proposed New Hejaz Railway, paired with Iraq’s Development Road Project linking the Persian Gulf to Europe via Turkiye. Together, they point to a reordering of how goods move across West Asia.

The focus is shifting toward overland routes that bypass exposed maritime chokepoints, with wider implications for the region’s political economy.

From a geostrategic standpoint, the project aims to insert itself into the architecture of global trade corridors, not merely complementing existing routes but competing with them.

A corridor across contested ground

The main line of the New Hejaz Railway is designed to connect Turkiye, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, forming a continuous axis with access to Europe and Africa. A branch from Aqaba would provide an outlet to the Red Sea, while access to the Indian Ocean would remain tied to the Bab al-Mandab chokepoint.

The line extends to the holy city of Mecca, but notably stops short of Jeddah. The absence of a second Red Sea outlet reflects the political realities of the Horn of Africa and Yemen. Somaliland’s alignment with Israel, Ethiopia’s close ties, and the presence of Ansarallah-aligned forces in Yemen all complicate any expansion along that route.

More consequential may be the southeastern extension. Branching off from Saudi Arabia, it would terminate at Oman’s Port of Duqm. This would establish a direct rail–sea corridor linking Europe to South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania – effectively repositioning the southeastern Arabian Peninsula as a gateway between continents.

War reshapes the logic of trade

Conflict has accelerated the push for alternative corridors. Escalation following the US-Israeli war against Iran, the risk of spillover into Gulf states, and the persistent threat to the Hormuz–Bab al-Mandab–Red Sea axis have exposed the fragility of existing routes. The closure – or even partial disruption – of these chokepoints carries global consequences.

Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline offers a preview of this logic in practice. Running 1,200 kilometers from Abqaiq to Yanbu, with a capacity of 7 million barrels per day (bpd), it bypasses Hormuz entirely. The same principle now extends beyond energy to goods ranging from petrochemicals to food.

The financial capacity exists to act on this shift. Gulf sovereign wealth funds, controlling assets estimated at $5 trillion, are expected to prioritize infrastructure investment in the lead-up to 2030. Without coordinated financing – particularly between Turkiye and Saudi Arabia for reconstruction in Syria – the railway itself remains aspirational. With it, the project becomes plausible.

Rebuilding the missing links

The proposed railway would stretch roughly 3,200 kilometers, running from Istanbul through Eskisehir, Konya, Adana, Aleppo, Damascus, and Amman before reaching Mecca. Travel time is projected at around 24 hours.

Transport ministers from Turkiye, Syria, and Jordan have already signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at developing rail, road, and logistics connectivity across the three countries.

The immediate task is reconstruction. Syria’s network remains damaged by war, while Jordan must build new north–south connections linking the Syrian border to Aqaba. Track gauge differences – 1,050 millimeters in parts of Syria versus the standard 1,435 millimeters – require standardization. Without it, integration remains incomplete.

Turkiye has already reopened a rehabilitated 350-kilometer railway corridor along its Syrian border, a route Ankara sees as an integral component of the planned Development Road connecting the Persian Gulf to Europe.

Beyond Mecca, toward strategic competition

The section beyond Mecca carries the project’s broader ambition. After more than a century, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia have agreed to revive the line and integrate it with routes leading to the Arabian Sea.

The immediate aim is to move Gulf energy and industrial goods to Europe without passing through Hormuz or Suez. The larger objective is more disruptive. The corridor is positioned as a counterweight to the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which has been promoted with US backing as a southern alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In this sense, the railway is not simply about logistics. It is part of a contest over who shapes the next phase of Eurasian connectivity.

Oman at the center of the shift

If the corridor materializes, its most critical node may be Oman.

Duqm Port, envisioned as the ocean gateway of the New Hejaz Railway, sits at the heart of Oman’s Vision 2040 strategy. Designed to bypass Hormuz entirely, it has the depth and capacity to host the world’s largest container ships.

Its technical specifications underline its ambition. With an 18-meter basin, a 19-meter approach channel, and the ability to handle vessels of up to 20,000 TEU, Duqm is built for scale. Its commercial quay stretches 1,600 meters, with capacity for millions of containers and significant bulk cargo.

Salalah and Sohar reinforce this positioning. Salalah has expanded to 6.5 million TEU and ranks among the world’s most efficient ports. Sohar continues to scale up capacity and storage. Together, they anchor Oman’s bid to become a central node in Indian Ocean trade.

This positioning carries added weight at a moment when the Strait of Hormuz is once again under strain, reinforcing Oman’s role not just as a logistics hub, but as a gatekeeper to one of the world’s most sensitive maritime chokepoints.

The powers that can block it

The project’s scale and ambition are likely to draw resistance, particularly from countries aligned with IMEC – including India, the UAE, Israel, Cyprus, and Greece – who stand to lose strategic positioning if trade shifts away from their routes.

More decisive, however, are the positions of four major actors: the US, EU, China, and Russia.

For Washington, IMEC complements the Abraham Accords, linking Gulf states and Israel through shared economic interests. For the EU, recent trade agreements with India strengthen the logic of that corridor, offering diversification away from both the US and China.

India, in turn, sees IMEC as a pathway to compete with China over the long term.

These overlapping interests create a structural incentive to slow, reshape, or obstruct the New Hejaz Railway.

China and Russia weigh opportunity against risk

For Beijing, the railway could compete with the BRI’s Middle Corridor, yet it could also be absorbed into it.

Integration remains possible, particularly if linked with the Development Road Project from Iraq’s Grand Faw Port. In that scenario, the corridor becomes less a rival and more an extension.

The fact that both projects could bypass IMEC strengthens their appeal from China’s perspective.

Russia faces a similar duality. A future normalization with Europe could reopen direct trade, but shifting flows southward may alter volumes. At the same time, expanded links could provide Moscow with indirect access to the Indian Ocean, offsetting some of those losses.

Iran as the missing piece

Any corridor that bypasses Hormuz inevitably raises questions about Iran’s role.

Reducing reliance on the strait risks diminishing Tehran’s strategic leverage. At the same time, excluding Iran entirely would limit the project’s reach and resilience.

The likely outcome lies in integration. Ankara and Riyadh would need to offer Tehran a stake – whether through linked routes, shared infrastructure, or broader coordination.

Including Pakistan may also be part of this equation, reflecting emerging alignment between Ankara, Riyadh, and Islamabad.

The focus falls less on Iran itself than on the IMEC corridor, which is backed by the US, EU, and Israel. Undermining that framework would sit comfortably with Tehran’s interests, so long as it is not pushed to the margins in the process.

Why the Development Road matters

The New Hejaz Railway does not stand alone. Its viability depends on integration with Iraq’s Development Road Project.

Running from Grand Faw Port through Iraq into Turkiye, the project is designed as a 1,200-kilometer logistics corridor combining high-speed rail, highways, and energy infrastructure. Often described as a “dry canal,” it offers a land-based alternative to maritime routes.

Grand Faw Port, already partially operational, has been built to accommodate the largest cargo vessels. Its depth exceeds that of the Suez Canal, positioning it as a major entry point for Asian goods.

Transit times point to the scale of the shift. A shipment from Shanghai to Rotterdam via Suez takes around a month. Through Faw and the Development Road, projections suggest that journey duration could be reduced to roughly two weeks.

Rather than competing with China’s BRI, the corridor could reinforce it from the south, providing redundancy and flexibility.

If combined with the New Hejaz Railway and the Middle Corridor, the result would be a layered network capable of absorbing shocks across multiple chokepoints.

COMPARISON OF TWO COMPETING CORRIDORS

OPERATIONAL AND COST PERFORMANCE MATRIX