Azernews.Az

Additional funds are required to complete work on the Turkish segment of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, Turkey’s Haberturk newspaper quoted a source at the transport ministry as saying on Tuesday.

$140 million allocated to build a new 76 km rail line in Turkey has been spent, but only 30-35 percent of the operations have been carried out. In order to complete the operations, a tender worth up to $420 million will be announced soon, the source said.

The Turkish segment of the railway, which stretches from the Azerbaijani capital through Tbilisi and Akhalkalaki in Georgia to the Turkish city of Kars, is being built by Ozgun Yapi-Celikler joint venture.

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 cost of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project, initially estimated at $400 million, has been gradually increased to $1.2 billion.

The Azerbaijani transport minister said earlier that construction operations are due to be completed by the end of 2012 and the railway 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.