CONSTRUCTION OF AZERBAIJAN-GEORGIA-TURKEY RAILWAY WILL NOT ISOLATE
ARMENIA
TBILISI. 25 AUGUST. ARMINFO-BSP. The construction of the
Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey railway Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Cars will
not isolate Armenia, the Georgian parliament claims.
“By this project Georgia is not going to isolate Armenia. On the
contrary, we believe that the road will make an economic profit to
Armenia,” David Bakradze, the chairman of the parliamentary committee
for Euro Atlantic integration, said to journalists.
In his words, due to bad relations between Armenia and Turkey the
railway doe not work. If Armenia is linked with Turkey and Europe via
Georgia, at this stage it will be a progress for Armenia.
The issue of constructing the railway between Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Turkey has become urgent after seven members of the US Congress sent a
message to Condoleezza Rice asking not to back up the project.
Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili said 24 August to
journalists that she had been unaware of the congressmen’s message.
We have been working on the project and we don not exclude others. We
are aware that Armenia disapproves the project. We are ready to
consider other routes. But we will let nobody to block any decision
particularly via the USA, she added.
According to some unofficial information from the Georgian parliament
the message sent to Condoleezza Rice says that the
Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Cars project had been part of the
anti-Armenian Georgia- Azerbaijani policy aimed at isolation of
Armenia. The US Congressmen ask the Secretary of State to consider the
opportunity to change the railway route and lay it via Armenian town
Gyumri. Meanwhile the working panels of Georgian, Azeri and Turkish
specialists continue working on the Baku- Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Cars
project’s feasibility study. Its details are to be discussed this
September in Ankara.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Cars Transport Corridor project provides for
construction of the 98-km railway Cars- Akhalkalaki and rehabilitation
of the available road Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi. The total cost of the
project amounts to about $400 million. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey
will finance it.