Kazakhstan working on Turkey's offer on changing transport route
By Amina Nazarli
Kazakhstan is considering Turkey’s offer to change the route of “China-Kazakhstan-Caspian-Caucasus-Turkey-Europe”, as part of the “Silk Wind” project, Akif Mustafayev, TRACECA (transport corridor Europe - Caucasus - Asia) National Secretary on Azerbaijan told Trend.
“Silk Wind” is a project in the framework of the cooperation program TRACECA. It will help reduce twice the terms of goods delivery compared to maritime transport, from 35 to 12-14 days.
According to the scheme proposed by Kazakhstan, the cargo containers from China will be transported to Kazakhstan's Caspian coast by railway. Then, they will be transferred to the sea ferry and taken to the Baku port. From the Azerbaijanis capital the containers will be delivered to Georgia by railway and then end up in Turkey.
Mustafayev said that, however, the Turkish offer includes directing the route by Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.
”The routes through the Black Sea ports have been operating for decades. That’s why, Turkish offer to direct the route to Baku-Tbilisi-Kars is an appropriate option,” he said.
“What about Georgia, it has already agreed with the initial route, as well as Azerbaijan. Now, Georgia considers the necessity of discussing new routes, and this process needs some months. We, for our turn, supported Turkey’s offer and are ready to review our previous decision, in case if Kazakhstan and Georgia support it,” Mustafayev said.
He said, after the four countries reach consensus on the issue, the sides will carry out repeating procedures and an intergovernmental agreement will be signed.
Mustafayev also added:“ It's a framework agreement as part of TRACECA, therefore consent of other states is not required.”
The Silk Wind project is serving as a supplement to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which aims to link directly the railway systems of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to transport large amounts of cargo and passengers and is under construction.
Silk Wind project's objective is to create a multimodal route of
trains (using containers/ro-ro) with preliminary exchange of
information between customs authorities and railway operators of
the participating countries.
Countries participating in the project plan to introduce a single
tariff for transportation of cargo within its framework.
TRACECA is an international transport program involving the European Union and 14 member-states of the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia regions. It has a permanent Secretariat, financed by the European Commission, in Baku, Azerbaijan, and a regional office in Odessa, Ukraine. Since 2009 the organization has been entirely financed by member countries.
Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Moldova, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan participate in the TRACECA program.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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