Georgian Prime Minister, Mamuka Bakhtadze, said that the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project is of major strategic importance to Georgia, reports Georgiatoday.
“This project is of strategic importance to our country and there is an agreement signed between three countries, in which the principles on project implementation are specifically defined. Most of the works are completed and we will conclude the project with the engineering decisions that have already been taken”, he said. He also added that the interconnecting station will be built in Akhalkalaki in Georgia.
Bakhtadze also commented on the recent meeting held in Ankara, where the heads of the Russian, Turkish and Azerbaijani railway companies signed a memorandum of understanding which intends to grant Russia access to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. The consent of all parties is required for involving other players in the project, Bakhtadze said. A same point of view shares the Georgian minister of economy, Natia Turnava. “It may be about an issue of attracting cargo to our region, but no single party has the right to change something in regards to this project, and this project is being carried out in the way we established our agreement upon so it is in line with our sovereign interests", Turnava said.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project initially had to be completed by 2010 but was delayed several times. After a trilateral meeting in February 2016, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia announced that the railway would finally be completed in 2017. Following the first test run by a passenger train from Tbilisi to Akhalkalaki on 27 September 2017, the BTK was inaugurated and the ceremony was hosted by the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, in Alyat on 30 October 2017. The Baku–Tbilisi–Kars project is intended to complete a transport corridor linking Azerbaijan to Turkey and therefore Central Asia and China to Europe via rail. The line is intended to transport an initial annual volume of 6.5 million tons, increasing to a long-term target of 17 million tons.
