ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
November 3, 2004 Wednesday
Railway traffic through Georgia to be reopened
By Yulia Bagrysheva
MOSCOW
Transport ministers of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan have fully
supported a project of reopening the through traffic on the
Trans-Caucasus railway, Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said.
PRIME-TASS quoted him as saying at a news briefing on Wednesday that
Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan would set up an operator
company for the restoration and maintenance of the railway link.
Russian Railways will join the company.
Levitin said bridges would be built at some segments of the railway and
a 200-kilometre stretch of it renovated. A part of the railway is mined
until now, and many bridges are destroyed.
The traffic through Georgia was stopped in August 1992 because of the
Georgian-Abkhazian conflict.
After the end of a military phase of it, Russia and Armenia repeatedly
raised the question of traffic resumption, Levitin said.
The Russian and Georgian presidents signed a statement in Sochi in
March 2003 on Georgian-Abkhazian settlement that in particular
envisions setting up a working group on the restoration of the railway
traffic through Abkhazia.
“The presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia fully support the
idea of restoring the through transport link,” Levitin said.