Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 13
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
A direct Baku-Nakhchivan railway route will be created after the Iranian section of the North-South corridor is constructed, Javid Gurbanov, head of the Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, told reporters in Baku Oct. 13.
He said there are two possible railway routes between Baku and Nakhchivan.
“The first route is a railway line from Turkey’s Kars to Azerbaijan’s Sadarak, which will mainly pass through Turkey,” he said. “Construction of such a railway will cost $2-2.5 billion and we do not know whether Turkey will invest in its construction.”
“As it is known, Iran is constructing a railway within the North-South corridor,” he said. “In this regard, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev ordered to allocate $500 million in a loan for construction of the $1 billion railway line. Iran committed itself to buy land plots.”
Gurbanov added that after the construction of the Iranian section, it will be possible to construct a 1,450-km railway between Baku and Nakhchivan through the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“The railway will pass through cities of Astara, Rasht, Tabriz and Julfa,” he said.