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  • New railways in the South Caucasus

    Messenger.ge, Georgia
    Tuesday, April 5, 2005, #061 (0835)

    New railways in the South Caucasus

    Economic - and political - ambitions unfold in plans for new rail lines
    connecting East to West
    By M. Alkhazashvili

    Several new railway projects are currently being considered across the South
    Caucasus, railway lines that would allow the region to at least partly
    capitalize on its potential as a transit hub.

    Azerbaijani, Georgian and Turkish engineers are in Baku on April 4-5 to work
    on the issue of the proposed Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway.
    According to reports, meanwhile, Russia is seeking to rent the Kars-Gyumri
    railway linking Turkey with Armenia. Kazakhstan has also proposed a
    cross-continent line linking China with Turkey, though the current route
    will bypass the Caucasus and run via Turkmenistan and Iran.

    Transporting cargo between Asia and Europe remains an economic, and
    geopolitical, problem in need of resolution, but is also an area of huge
    potential for the strategically located countries of the South Caucasus. The
    economic collapse in the region in the 1990s, along with the various
    conflicts, has meant that the region is yet to capitalize on this potential.
    One example is the Kars-Gyumri-Yerevan-Nakhichevan-Baku railway linking
    Turkey with Azerbaijan via Armenia. The line has been closed since the
    beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and its reactivation remains
    dependent on the successful resolution of this frozen conflict.

    As a result, it was proposed more than a decade ago that a new railway be
    constructed linking Turkey with Azerbaijan via Georgia. This would meaning
    constructing a new line between Kars in Turkey and Akhalkalaki in southern
    Georgia. Such a line would not only link the three countries' railway
    systems together, it would also allow cargo to be transported from the
    Caspian to the Mediterranean direct.

    Construction of this railway could potentially jeopardize relations with
    both Russia and Armenia, however, and as Rezonansi writes, the Shevardnadze
    administration was never courageous enough to take this risk. Although they
    would benefit economically from the link, furthermore, the predominantly
    ethnic Armenian population of Akhalkalaki have always opposed the railway.

    Since the Rose revolution, however, the governments of Turkey, Azerbaijan
    and Georgia have taken strides towards constructing the railway, which will
    cost an estimated USD 1.5 billion. 68 of the 96 km stretch is in Turkey, and
    the Turkish government has already pledged to finance the main part of the
    work.

    Meanwhile, Russia is hoping that the project will be made unnecessary by the
    renewal of the Kars-Gyumri railway. Russian Minister of Transport Igor
    Levitin said this week that Russia had asked to rent the railway line,
    adding that transporting cargo via this line would be twice as cheap as by
    the Kars-Akhalkalaki section. The Minister told the countries to put aside
    their political differences and discuss the issue solely from an economic
    point of view, although it is virtually impossible to keep politics out of
    it, as Russia's offer is motivated less by economics and more by politics.

    Even if Turkey agrees to this, however, Azerbaijan will not permit cargo to
    cross between Armenia and Azerbaijan, even if via a third country such as
    Georgia and bound for a fourth - Turkey. The Karsi-Gyurmi railway can thus
    not be seen as an alternative to the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway.

    These ongoing disputes between the South Caucasus countries are holding the
    region back from fully capitalizing on its potential as a transit hub, and
    this can be seen in Kazakhstan's initiative to build a 4,000 kilometer-long
    railway from the Kazakh-Chinese border that would bypass the Caspian and
    South Caucasus and pass instead through Turkmenistan and Iran.

    The project was presented recently by Kazakh Transportation and
    Communications Minister Hajimurat Nemanov, who said that the railway would
    be constructed entirely from scratch, as current railway systems in
    Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan do not adhere to European standards and are
    unable to carry modern cargo trucks. Nemanov stated that cargo could be
    transported along this route from Chinese eastern ports to the major Dutch
    port of Rotterdam in just 13 days, as reported by newspaper Akhali Taoba.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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