Turkish President: "Turkey interested in railway project with Georgia and Azerbaijan"

"We continue the work on implementation of the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway project. We want the railway project connecting Turkey with Georgia and Azerbaijan to be added to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline," Sezer said at a briefing after the meeting with Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian President, Trend reports.

Touching upon the BTC oil pipeline, Sezer noted that the ceremony of loading of the first tanker transporting through BTC would be held in the summer. He invited Saakashvili to participate in the ceremony.

The fist statements by the representative of Georgia and Turkey on construction of the railway between Kars, Eastern Turkey, and Akhalkalaki, Southern Georgia, were voiced in late 1990s. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have been making active efforts to start construction of the railway.

The Presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey declared for establishment of the international transport corridor Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku in Baku in May 2005. They supported the project on construction of the 98km railway between Kars and Akhalkalaki. 68 km falls to Turkey, 30 km - Georgia. The project is estimated at approximate $400 or $450m.

The implementation of the project will allow annual transportation of 3m tons of cargoes through the corridor, ITAR-TASS reports.