Azernews.Az

The country's economic development minister Georgi Arveladze dismissed the utterances, saying the project is set to begin as scheduled (early in November).
"This transport hub meets primarily the interests of Georgia from the strategic standpoint. We are therefore not impeding the project, but swiftly solving outstanding issues for the construction work to begin soon. Any delays are out of the question," Arveladze said.
He said only tender-related issues remained unresolved. "After the company to carry out construction operations is selected, the project implementation will begin."
The Georgian prime minister's surprise statement came hot on the heals of a regular meeting of the Georgian-Armenian commission on economic cooperation in Yerevan.
Georgia launched a tender early in October to select a contractor to build its section of the railway and said the winner would be announced by the end of this month. Tbilisi then made it clear that there were no hurdles in the way of launching construction operations as planned.
Azerbaijani and Turkish officials had also said that all the technical and financial issues pertaining to the project had been solved.
The over $400 million railway will link Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and create the shortest route to transport cargo between Europe and Asia. 1.5 million passengers and 3 million tons of cargo will be transported by the route in 2010, with the figures to reach 3.5 million passengers and 16.5 million tons by 2034.