Railway passenger transportation between Baku and Ankara discussed

Azerbaijani and Turkish officials discussed the extension of the Ankara-Kars passenger train route the Eastern Express to Baku, said the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Turkiye Adil Karaismailoglu, Report informs.

According to him, this opportunity can be created in the coming years.

The minister said that the tripartite meeting of transport officials of Azerbaijan, Turkiye, and Georgia held in Tbilisi assessed the possibilities of passenger transportation along with cargo transportation: "We always discuss freight issues. Why not carry out passenger transport when the infrastructure is ready in the coming years?!"

The minister noted that three states are continuing negotiations for the further development of transport corridors: "Currently, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway line and Marmara line projects are being implemented. Our trains have started operating from China to the UK. We then discuss what can be done to further increase this potential."

The minister stressed the importance of further developing the infrastructures of the region's countries due to the difficulties in transportation caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war.

BTK was launched on October 30, 2017. The line connects the railway networks between Asia and Europe. This is the shortest route not only between the three countries but also between Asia and Europe. BTK allows reducing the time spent on cargo transportation by more than two times. The BTK railway facilitates access to European and world markets for Central Asian countries - Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan.

A total of 504 kilometers of the 846-kilometer BTK is in Azerbaijan, 263 kilometers in Georgia, and 79 km in Turkey. It is planned to transport 5 million tons of cargo in the first stage, 17 million tons in the next step, and then a larger volume.