ARMENIA NEEDS AN ALTERNATIVE ROAD
Naira Khachatryan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
02 Sep 2008
Armenia
Chairman of Armenian – Georgian inter-parliamentary committee Volodya
Badalyan was the guest of "Urbat" club yesterday.
"After the explosion of the railway bridge on August 16, next day
the Chief of Georgian railway administration called us and asked for
help. The railway had to be restored, to continue the transportation
of the loads. I appealed to the leadership of South-Caucasian railway
and they immediately responded," V. Badalyan said.
The group of specialists armed with all the necessary technical means
was in Tbilisy in the evening of August 18. "We left by a special
train and took 3 wagons of sleepers with us. We received a very cordial
visit in Tbilisy from where we took our direction to city Kaspy.
The exploded bridge was located 8-10 km from that city. By the help
of Armenian specialists and the sleepers that we took with us we
started the reconstruction works."
The reconstruction works of the main bridge is still on: "In my view
these works will continue for one month. Luckily there was another
old bridge just next to the exploded one and it was possible to
reconstruct that one more swiftly and provide a round-about way. If
I’m not mistaken, on August 22nd the round-about way was ready. But
unfortunately that part of the railway can work only by diesel
locomotives and only by one direction. That is to say the wagons can
transport loads by two directions simultaneously, because there is
only one line.
To provide the transportation of first aid loads to Armenia the group
decided to move forward to Batum and Potty. "After the reconstruction
of the railway around 350 wagons of wheat, 68 wagons of petrol, and
other goods have been transported to Armenia. All in all 982 wagons
of load have already been transported to Armenia, by a round-about
way. There were certain difficulties in Potty, I must say that lots
of problems have appeared immediately after the war state but they
are almost solved and the railway is ready to return to its normal
schedule."
According to V. Badalyan the imported goods mainly belong to private
companies. "Those who worked actively didn’t have any problems. Even
if at the moment they appeal for help we are ready to help them in
the reconstruction of the roads, wagons and ports. Anyway at the
moment there are no accumulations on the roads."
As for the petrol: "On September 3 2500 tones of petrol will enter
Armenia. In my view the work is in normal process. There are lots of
difficulties on the roads and we can’t exclude anything, because it
is a post-war territory.
In that regard the issue of security is especially difficult to solve:
"Georgia=2 0is in fact in a "blitz-war". In such conditions no one
can guarantee security. When we went to the exploded bridge there
was no one there, even foreign journalists. They asked the cadres of
the exploded bridge from our group. But at the moment the authorities
must provide security."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
