Turkey's Official: Baku-Tbilisi-Kars to be completed by end of 2014
By Nazrin Gadimova
Project construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will be
completed by the end of 2014 at the latest, Turkish Minister of
Transport, Shipping and Communications Binali Yildirim told to the
local Turkish media on November 21.
According to the minister, construction work within the framework
of the BTK railway project continues.
Earlier, Azerbaijan's Deputy Minister of Transportation Musa
Panahov said that despite the complexity of the relief on the
territory of Georgia and Turkey, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will
be put into operation in 2014.
According to Panahov, plans have been made to send the first
technical trains and locomotives by late 2013.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being built in accordance with an
inter-governmental agreement reached by Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Turkey. The railway will increase the flow of containers and other
types of cargo from Asia to Europe.
Azerbaijan has allocated a $775 million loan for the construction
of the Georgian section of the railway. Funding for the project
from the State Oil Fund is carried out in accordance with the 2007
presidential decree on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project.
Construction of a new 105 kilometer branch railway as part of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project is planned. In addition, reconstruction
work will be carried out on the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda railway
in Georgia, which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of
cargo per year. Building a center in Akhalkalaki for the transition
of trains from the existing train tracks in Georgia to the European
ones is envisaged.
Around 30 million tons of cargo a year is to be transported via the
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line, which will become a direct route to
the European rail network.