The relevant agreement was signed on Wednesday by Dakar Deputy Director Frederic Lequien and Semyon Yakubov, the head of the Silk Road rally project.
"For over two months we have been holding top-secret negotiations. Now we are happy to announce that an agreement has been reached and we are ready to make this rally a grand event under the Dakar brand," Lequien said at a news conference in Moscow.
Yakubov, who is also the chief manager of the Team Kamaz that has won Dakar rallies eight times, said the rally's new status was a boost to the development of auto sports in Russia.
"This is a great achievement for Russian auto sports as well as our colleagues from Kazakhstan and auto sports lovers from Turkmenistan," Yakubov said.
However, he said this year's rally would not involve motorbike racers due to complexity of the new rally's route.
"This category [motorbikes] is most likely to get injured and for the first time we have decided not to enter it in the competition," he said. "But if everything goes fine we will include it next time."
Applications for the Silk Road race will be accepted beginning in April with the rally scheduled to start on September 5 in Tatarstan's Kazan, the home city of Kamaz trucks, and finish in Turkmenistan's capital of Ashgabat.
