Key Points:
- The railway is 224 kilometers long and is scheduled for completion within five years.
- It will connect Turkey with Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan, enhancing regional logistical capacity.
- Both Armenian and Turkish authorities have expressed support for the project.
On August 22, Turkey broke ground on a new railway which will connect Kars with Azerbaijan via the planned passing through Armenia. The 224-kilometer railway will cost $2.4 billion and is scheduled for completion by 2030. It will run through “Kars, Tuzluca, Igdir, Aralik, and Dilucu before connecting to Nakhchivan and continuing through Armenia to Azerbaijan.” It has a projected annual capacity of 5.5 million passengers and 15 million tons of cargo. The project in its passing through Armenia will go through Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity and has received $2.8 billion in funding from Japanese, Swedish, and Austrian sources.
The project’s website declares that it will “strengthen Türkiye’s logistics and trade bridges between Central Asia, the Caucasus and Europe”. It will significantly enhance the connectivity of Europe and Asia, improving Turkey’s trade capacity. Goods will arrive in just eighteen days, half the time of existing corridors.
The railway will complement the existing Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway, which was completed in 2017. Some sources claim the railway could shave as much as an 1.5 hours off of the journey, while others highlight the increase in capacity enabled by this construction.
Turkey’s minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu labeled the construction a major victory in realizing the Zangezur Corridor. In response, the Armenian minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Davit Khudatyan told Armenpress that only projects approved by Armenia may take place within its territory. Moreover, all projects must fall within the TRIPP/Crossroads of Peace initiative. Khudatyan further clarified that Armenia is not only excited about this project, but is also willing to reopen the Gyumri-Kars railway. This connection has been closed since 1993, following Turkey’s blockade of Armenia during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Prime Minister Pashinyan also reiterated to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that the TRIPP will be under Armenian control, to assuage Iranian fears of an American presence on its border.
The question of re-introducing transport links throughout the region has been a major element of peace negotiations, and this railway represents the first concrete step taken in this direction.
Article written by Nathalie Stein and Conor Scannell, Intern Research Assistants at the Research Center on Security Policy
