Minister: BTK railway to be commissioned in August

By Azernews

By Sara Israfilbayova

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, construction of which began in 2008, will be commissioned in August 2017.

Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication of Turkey Ahmet Arslan said that Turkey has almost completed construction of the BTK railway on the country’s territory, but the problem is that a landslide occurred on the Georgian section of the railway.

Earlier, the Ministry did not exclude the possibility of participation of the heads of state of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey in the opening ceremony.

Arslan previously said that the BTK railway would be put into operation in late June 2017.

The BTK railway is a corridor that will connect Azerbaijan, Georgian and Turkish railways. It is being constructed on the basis of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey intergovernmental agreement. The main purpose of the project is to improve economic relations between the three countries and gaining foreign direct investment by connecting Europe and Asia.

The line is intended to transport one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of freight at the first stage. This capacity will then reach 3 million passengers and 17 million tons of cargo.