Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31
By Rufiz Hafizoglu – Trend:
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway will further strengthen Azerbaijani-Turkish relations, Erdem Eren, Turkish foreign policy expert and chief coordinator of the Beyaz Harekat political movement, told Trend Oct. 31.
He noted that the BTK railway is also the most important economic project for Turkey.
“Turkey is expected to gain an income of $1 billion per year from the BTK,” Eren said.
The expert added that Turkey and Azerbaijan, as two important states of the region, will further strengthen economic ties.
“The volume of Azerbaijani investment in the Turkish economy reaches $20 billion and its amount is expected to increase,” he said.
The official opening ceremony of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway was held in Baku Oct. 30. The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. The railway’s peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.