Agency WPS
What the Papers Say Part A (Russia)
February 9, 2007 Friday
SAAKASHVILI GIVES ALIYEV THE TBILISI MERIDIAN;
Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey are launching a large-scale project
by Anatoly Gordiyenko
Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey expand trilateral cooperation;
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan have visited Georgia for a trilateral regional
cooperation summit. They signed an agreement on another large-scale
project involving all three countries: a Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has received President Ilham
Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
who have come to Georgia for a trilateral regional cooperation
summit. The meeting’s chief result was the signing of an agreement on
another large-scale project involving all three countries: a
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad.
The project’s estimated cost is $422 million, or $600 million
including associated infrastructure. Construction is scheduled to
start this summer and be completed in 2009. The new railroad, with a
throughput capacity of 5-8 million tons of cargo per year, is
intended to connect Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as becoming an
important link in an East-West transport corridor.
The project is going ahead despite clear disapproval from the United
States (Washington believes it will exacerbate Armenia’s isolation)
and skepticism among many Georgian specialists and politicians, who
say that this railroad will primarily benefit Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Salome Zurabishvili, Georgia’s former foreign affairs minister,
maintains that this shorter rail route will take away the chief
function of Georgia’s ports, used to transport most cargo to Europe
by sea. Moreover, the project’s opponents have argued that Georgia’s
budget can’t afford $200 million to upgrade the Soviet-era
Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki railroad branch and extend it to the Turkish
border.
Baku has come up with some counter-arguments. Azerbaijan has offered
Georgia a low-interest (1% per annum) long-term loan of $200 million.
It has also helped resolve Georgia’s energy problems by starting
deliveries of natural gas to Georgia. Eventually, the
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad agreement was formalized yesterday without
any objections from the Georgians. The final questions were resolved
during Saakashvili’s bilateral talks with Aliyev and Erdogan, and at
their trilateral meeting.
President Aliyev arrived, as scheduled, several hours before Prime
Minister Erdogan, and received some special marks of attention. His
visit to Tbilisi opened with a surprise prepared by President
Saakashvili. Aliyev was driven from the airport straight to the
Laguna Vere sports center on the bank of the Kura River, where the
two presidents unveiled a memorial to Heidar Aliyev, father of
Azerbaijan’s present leader. This memorial is a granite pillar four
meters tall, symbolizing the strengthening strategic partnership
between Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey; it is called the Tbilisi
Meridian and is inscribed with figures indicating the distance from
Tbilisi to Baku and Ankara.
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 8, 2007, p. 6
Translated by Elena Leonova