The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, which started in 2007 and called the Iron Silk Road will be put into operation today.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, as well as other officials from the three countries and representatives of transport sector will attend the opening ceremony.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway, an important section in the middle of the modern Silk Road, will today be commissioned, increasing connectivity among Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.
The project to connect Baku with Kars via Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi by rail launched in 2007 and construction began in 2008.
Once the railway will be fully operational, all three countries will mutually benefit from improved trade and economic relations and gain additional Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) through the new railway connecting Europe and Asia.
Notably, the Azerbaijani side has ordered the Swiss "Stadler" company 30 carriages for omnibus trains operating on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars route. Carriages are manufactured in four categories: "standard", "comfort", "business" and "restaurant".
report.az