Georgia, Tbilisi, April 24 / Trend N.Kirtzkhalia /
Georgia has offered NATO the use of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway for transportation of goods from Afghanistan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Maia Pandzhikidze told journalists in Brussels, where she is taking part in the alliance's ministerial meeting.
She told the meeting about Georgia's participation in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. There are currently 1700 Georgian troops in Afghanistan, and the country will continue its mission there after 2014.
She also reiterated the government's initiative, inviting NATO to use the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway for transportation of goods from Afghanistan.
"We always say this to NATO partners. In the first instance this initiative was announced by the Prime Minister of Georgia at a meeting with the Secretary General of NATO. There is a very big interest in this railway and the Turkish Foreign Minister has mentioned this in his speech. Baku-Tbilisi-Kars is a joint project of the three countries which may be of interest to NATO. This is the quickest way for the withdrawal and export of goods from Afghanistan. Therefore, Georgia's proposal was welcomed at today's meeting. I believe this proposal will be acceptable to NATO," Pandzhikidze said.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia is taking part in the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being built on the basis of a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish inter-state agreement. Azerbaijan provided a loan worth $775 million for construction of the Georgian section.
Funding for this project from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan is carried out according to a presidential decree on the 'Implementation of measures within Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project' dated February 21, 2007. The State Oil Fund has allocated $431.3 million since the beginning of financing the project until Jan.1, 2013.
Construction of a new 105-kilometre railway section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project is planned. Moreover, the section of the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda railway will be reconstructed in Georgia which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a centre in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from existing train tracks in Georgia to European ones.
The corridor's peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo in its initial stages.
In the future, with the completion of the Marmaray project (construction of a tunnel under the Bosporus) access to Europe will be provided through the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.