Azernews.Az

60 percent of operations in Georgia and Turkey under the project on building a major railway to link the two countries with Azerbaijan have been carried out so far, the chief engineer for Azerbaijan Railways has said.

Gurban Nazarov said a first train will be dispatched by the end of 2012 to test the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.

According to him, $250 million has been spent to construct the Georgian section of the railway so far, and the figure is expected to reach $400 million by the end of 2011.

Azerbaijan will lend a total of $775 million to the neighboring country under the railway project. The funds will be spent to build a 4 km tunnel stretching to Georgia’s border with Turkey. Also, the 160 km Marabda-Akhalkalaki section of the railway will be overhauled.

Azerbaijan’s Azerinshaatservice is carrying out construction work in the Georgian part of the railroad.

In Turkey, a new 76 km rail line stretching from the border with Georgia to the city of Kars will be constructed.

Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey signed an agreement on the railway project in February 2007 in Tbilisi, and construction of the railway began in November that year.

The Azerbaijani transport minister said earlier that construction operations are due to be completed by the end of 2012 and it will be commissioned in early 2013.

The throughput capacity of the railway will peak at 17 million tons of cargo per year. Initially, the capacity will be 6.5 million tons of consignments and 1 million passengers.

The cost of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project has been gradually increased to $1.2 billion.

Azerbaijan Railways chairman Arif Asgarov said that large-scale railway projects being implemented in Azerbaijan will increase the volume of cargo transported through the country by 20 million tons per year.

"Additional 5 million tons of consignments are expected to be shipped as a result of commissioning the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail line, and 15 million tons as part of the North-South corridor project," Asgarov said.

According to him, the North-South route stretches from Russia to Iran via Azerbaijan. A consortium of the three countries is being established to implement the project, and each country is to contribute $1 million to its capital stock.

Asgarov stressed that Azerbaijan is interested in the realization of the North-South project. It will allow to transport cargo from Europe, including Scandinavian countries, as well as Russia and Ukraine through Azerbaijan to Iran’s Bender-Abbas seaport and further to the Indian ocean littoral states.