Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.17
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
The project for construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway will revitalize the economy of the entire region, TRT Haber news channel quoted Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish foreign minister, as saying.
Turkey attaches special attention to the BTK project, he said during a visit to Georgia Feb. 17.
Cavusoglu also noted that the construction of the BTK railway will be completed this year.
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed on the basis of a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. Azerbaijan allocated a loan of $775 million for the construction of the railway's Georgian section.
The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) finances the project in accordance with the Azerbaijani president's decree 'On the implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project activities', dated February 21, 2007.
The peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.
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