Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 31 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Georgian and Turkish transport ministries must operate independently for further development of the Silk Wind project within the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA), TRACECA national secretary on Azerbaijan Akif Mustafayev told Trend today.
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Turkey signed a memorandum on the Silk Wind transportation project in November 2012 which is an initiative within TRACECA programme.
The organisation's national secretary said that the four countries being the central links in the Silk Road must take the initiative to set up working groups at ministerial level and begin working on the project implementation.
"In the case of necessity, the transport ministries may appeal to TRACECA, but the initiative in this project must first come from the relevant bodies in the face of the transport ministries of the four countries," Mustafayev said.
Silk Wind project aims at creating a multimodal transport train route (container/ro-ro) with the preliminary exchange of information between customs bodies and rail operators of participating countries. The member countries plan to introduce a single tariff for transportation of goods within the project.
TRACECA is an international transport cooperation programme between the EU and its partner countries in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia. It has a permanent secretariat in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Currently TRACECA member states are Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Moldova, Romania, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Iran.