Minister: Turkish section of BTK to be ready by late June

By Azernews

By Kamila Aliyeva

The Turkish section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway corridor (BTK) will be ready by the end of June, Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication Ahmet Arslan said during the inspection of the railway in the Kars province.

Arslan arrived in Kars province on June 3 to inspect the BTK. The ministry reported that for now it is necessary to complete minor works for completing the project.

The BTK railway has come to the fore as a critical project at the western end of the Silk Road.

The BTK railway is being constructed on the basis of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey intergovernmental agreement.

Peak capacity of the railway will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, it will serve one million passengers and transport 6.5 million tons of cargo. 

BTK project is expected to further strengthen the neighborly and fraternal relations among the three countries and enable the countries to supply domestically produced goods to the world markets.

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) invested some $630.2 million in the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project as of January 1, 2017. Last year, the fund allocated $41.9 million for the implementation of the project.