Azerbaijan, Baku, June 28 / Trend /
In Turkish province Kars on Thursday held a ceremony of first coupling works on railway in the framework of the project "Baku-Tbilisi-Kars" (BTK), Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkish Minister of Transport, Shipping and Communications Binali Yildirim, Minister of Transport of Azerbaijan Ziya Mammadov, Geogian Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili attended at the ceremony.
After the BTK project will be realized, it will be open to all, Minister of Transport, Shipping and Communications Binali Yildirim said.
"This project is not only a project of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, but also the project of Central Asian countries, China, the Balkans, the Middle East and even the EU. Welfare of countries and the region will increase even more. Together we will carry out further work", minister said.
According to Ziya Mammadov, all the people working on the project make a very important historical work.
"People will be able to travel from one region to another. Business world and entrepreneurs will take advantage of this corridor for the transportation of goods. They will enrich their budgets," - minister said.
Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili thanked everyone who participated in the work on the project.
Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia are the three strategic partners and this project makes people of the three countries closer, Kvirikashvili said.
Next three ministers made the first copling of rails on the railway.
It is planned to construct a new 105 kilometre branch railway as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, 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 the existing train tracks in Georgia to the European one.
Peak capacity of the corridor 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 the initial stages.
In future, with completion of the Marmara project (construction of a tunnel under the Bosporus), access to Europe will be provided using the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.