Turkey to complete new 79-km long railway soon

BAKU - Anadolu Agency

A new $700 million 79 km-long railway route is set to be completed in Turkey in 2015 as a part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway project, becoming a vital chain of the modern Silk Road, Transport Minister Lütfi Elvan said at a conference on the BTK project on Oct. 16.

“We are planning to complete the 79 km-long part of the project within the borders of Turkey by the end of next year, for a total investment of $700 million,” Elvan said, stressing that the BTH project would play a great role in connecting the neighboring countries’ infrastructures on the path to establishing “a new Silk Road.”

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being built in accordance with an inter-governmental agreement reached by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The railway is expected to increase the flow of containers and other types of cargo from Asia to Europe. Its throughput capacity will peak at 17 million tons of cargo per year, the partnering countries announced in 2013. Initially, the capacity will be 6.5 million tons of consignments and one million passengers.