Azerbaijan suspends oil exports through ports in Western Georgia

Azerbaijan suspended oil exports through ports in western Georgia yesterday after an explosion damaged a key rail bridge there. Georgia accused Russian troops of blowing up a railway bridge west of the capital Tbilisi earlier in the day, saying its main east-west train link had been severed. Russia strongly denied any involvement.

"Transportation of oil and oil products in the western direction by railway has been suspended," Azerbaijan's state railway company said in a statement read out on television. It gave the bridge explosion as the reason for the suspension. "The last shipment made by this railway contained 15 tanks," it said. Another 72 oil tanks had been due to be sent to next-door Armenia before the railway link was cut off, it said. The railway line runs from Tbilisi, through the Russian-occupied Georgian town of Gori, before splitting in three and running to the Black Sea ports of of Poti and Batumi and southwest to just short of the Turkish border.

/Reuters/