Turkish PM to head for Georgia to attend signing ceremony for rail project
UPDATED: 09:06, February 04, 2007
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will leave for Georgia on
Feb. 7 to attend the signing ceremony for the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku (KTB)
railway project, the semi- official Anatolia news agency reported on
Saturday.
Construction of the rail project linking the eastern Turkish town of
Kars and the _Azerbaijan_
( ta/azerbaijan.html) i capital
Baku via Georgian capital Tbilisi is expected to start in June and
will last for two years, Anatolia said.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili will also be in attendance at the signing ceremony, the
report said.
Turkish Minister of Transport Binali Yildirim has said that _Turkey_
( urkey.html) would be
responsible for the construction of 76-km branch that leads to the
Georgian border, while Georgia will undertake the construction of 25
km of track within its borders.
Turkey’s portion of the total cost of the railway project is expected
to reach 250 million U.S. dollars when completed.
Azerbaijan will lend 200 million dollars to Georgia to finance
construction of its portion of a railway that will link Azerbaijan
with Turkey, according to an agreement signed in Tbilisi on Jan. 13.
Source: Xinhua
People’s Daily Online —
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
