The envious BTK miscalculated the conclusions

Those who predict the "quiet death" of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway corridor after the opening of the Zangezur corridor have again jumped to conclusions.

Detractors and envious people began to predict the "quiet death" of this route already when Baku, Ankara and Tbilisi had just signed a memorandum on the construction of this road.  And that was in February 2007. Almost two decades have passed, and envious people and ill-wishers continue to make their predictions, promising that BTC will disappear into oblivion, will never pay off, because it is unprofitable, useless to anyone, and so on.

BTK has already mixed up the maps of Russia and excited Armenia at the idea stage. The latter vehemently opposed the new route, arguing that there is already a road running through Gyumri from Turkiye to Georgia, and the project is political in nature in order to further isolate Armenia. The Armenian lobby has ensured a cold and cautious attitude towards the project of international financial institutions that have not shown interest in lending to the project bypassing Armenia. It was expected that Baku would be forced to abandon its idea and the BTK would go into the back burner. However, construction began in 2008. And today Baku-Tbilisi-Kars is one of the most important components of the grandiose Middle Corridor. If this route had not been built, it would still have to be created today, because international overland freight transportation is ineffective without a railway.

With the development of the Middle Corridor (Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, TMTM), the need for BTK is also growing. This route is already a reality that has been accepted, but which continues to irritate the taste buds of certain countries and circles.

Yesterday, Kazakhstan and Turkiye agreed to increase cargo transportation along the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway route. According to the Kazakh Railways, the corresponding agreement was signed by the national railway operators KZHD and TCDD Ta?imacilik A.?. The agreement was signed during the official visit of the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to Turkiye.

The parties agreed to organize regular scheduled rail services between Kazakhstan and Turkiye, as well as to expand the capacity of freight traffic between China and Europe/Africa in both directions. In addition, customs and administrative controls will be simplified in order to speed up the passage of goods across borders.

In early July, the Railway Department of China (CR) and Azerbaijan Railways CJSC (ADY) signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing, providing for strengthening cooperation in the development of international transport corridors in freight transportation. The document pays special attention to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars route, as a key element of the Middle Corridor, and an increase in the intensity of transit traffic along it to 10 trains per day. To achieve this goal, the parties will cooperate in improving the railway and port structures, digitalizing the route, and so on. It is reported that one of the largest container operators in China, China Railway Container Transport (CRCT), plans to join the Middle Corridor Multimodal joint venture established in 2023 by the railways of Kazakhstan (KTZ), Georgia (GR) and Azerbaijan (ADY).

In April of this year, Emil Mammadov, Deputy Chairman of ADY, announced at the Caspian-Central Asian Oil Trade and Logistics Forum in Baku that the BTK could be fully commissioned this year. In 2024, ADY carried out major repairs and reconstruction of the railway track, expanded the capabilities of the terminals, work is underway to attract dry cargo, and transportation of petroleum products via the BTK will begin after the road is fully operational.

In any case, the process will be completed before the end of this year. First of all, we are talking about the modernization and expansion of the Georgian section of the corridor. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said in a government report to Parliament that 98.5 percent of the work on the Georgian section of the BTK has been completed. He stated that the railway modernization project is nearing completion. The result of the work carried out will be an increase in the annual capacity of the road from 27 to 48 million tons.

Recently, Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev met with Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia Mariam Kvrivishvili, who was on a visit to Azerbaijan. The meeting discussed, among other things, the upcoming work on the full launch of the BTK.

The creation of the BTK provided opportunities for the expansion of the railway segment of the Middle Corridor. In 2007, when the BTK was being conceived, the Middle Corridor was still out of the question, but today the Baku project turned out to be in the right place at the right time and waited in the wings, becoming almost indispensable. Someone says that with the launch of the Zangezur corridor, the BTK will no longer be needed. But, firstly, the launch of the road through Zangezur is still far away, there are too many political obstacles in the way of the project. Secondly, each of the routes has its own task. In addition, considering the volume of cargo transportation that is expected, both routes will be loaded to capacity. 

In 2020, Turkiye announced plans to build a railway that will connect the Turkish railway network with the Azerbaijani one. The Minister of Transport and Infrastructure said that Turkey intends to become a "logistical superpower" by connecting a number of ports to the railways and increasing the capacity of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars corridor connecting the railways of Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

In May 2023, President Erdogan made an important statement during a speech in Sivas. "The high-speed railway to be built in Turkiye will connect to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line," he said. According to him, a connecting line will be built from Yerkey station to Kayseri, which will be extended to Erzincan, Erzurum and Kars. And from there, the road will connect to the BTK. Erdogan stressed that this line, called the Iron Silk Road, will open a strategic corridor of global importance in our region.

On June 27, at the Global Transport Corridors Forum in Istanbul, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated that the Turkish side intends to increase the efficiency of the BTK. Given the current geopolitical risks, the importance of the Middle Corridor is increasing significantly, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is an important component of this route, Fidan said. He also noted that the transformation of the BTK into an important component of the Middle Corridor is the result of the exemplary trilateral cooperation between Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

As President Erdogan says, this strategic corridor of global importance stretches from the ends of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars not only to Turkey, but also to Central Asia, where, with the assistance of China, accelerated work is underway to expand, modernize and build railway infrastructure, including tracks and terminals. Although Central Asia is separated from the BTK by the sea, this is not an obstacle to connecting the railway network of Central Asian countries to the Iron Silk Road and connecting their railways with the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars corridor.

Once again, the world is convinced that everything that is conceived and implemented by Azerbaijan is conceived and implemented with a view to the future. It may take ten or twenty years, but Baku's projects always find their irreplaceable place in the grid of international interests. None of the Azerbaijani regional-scale projects were left out. So BTK is now entering a big game.