Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey intend to initial an agreement on the implementation of the building of the railway - Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku.
Namig Aliyev, Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Georgia, has exclusively told Trend that all principal issues on the above-mentioned agreement have been agreed during the today's meeting in Tbilisi.
All major issues have been agreed. At present, lawyers are occupied with the document,, said the Azerbaijani Ambassador.
After the agreement is initialed, the document will be submitted to the Governments of the three countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey for further consideration. The Georgian Government is expected to approve the agreement to be signed during its regular sitting to be held on January 17, 2007.
Azerbaijan have already expressed his readiness to finance its own share in the project - $200 mln., as well as give all required volume of funds to finance the Georgian section of the building of the railway.
As a result of the sitting of the trilateral working group on the implementation of Kars-Akahalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku, projects of the framework agreement, the Georgian party's obligation to allot an area for the construction of the railway, and a credit agreement between Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgian were considered.
The project is estimated at $422 mln. If to take into account all accompanying infrastructure, its value will increase up to $600 mln.
The U. S. Administration has prohibited American companies to take part in financing the project.
The trilateral Azerbaijani-Georgian-Turkish declaration on the project on the building of the railway - Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku was signed by the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey in Baku in May, 2005.