Back in the days of "football diplomacy," when there was a lot of talk about the reopening of the Armenian-Turkish railway, there were quite a few studies that proved that Armenia does not receive any economic benefits from it, Armenian opposition MP Gegham Manukyan told a press conference on Friday
"That is, Armenia cannot carry out such amount of cargo transportation to the Black Sea, taking into account the width of our railway tracks and the narrowness of the Turkish one. Through the territory of Turkey, cargoes reach the Black Sea through mountainous regions; that’s why the speed of trains and the number of train cars are limited, and such cargo transportation will not take place. (…) There is no substantiated economic assessment of what benefit Armenia can have. Moreover, when the Minister of Economy of Armenia spoke about multi-billion [US dollars of] investments, when he was asked on what basis this was based, it was found out on the basis of the study of the World Bank in 1999," said Manukyan.