TURKEY: A groundbreaking ceremony has launched construction of the Kars – Iğdır – Aralık – Dilucu line, which will extend the rail network to the border of Azerbaijan’s Naxçıvan exclave.
The ceremony on August 22 was led by Minister of Transport & Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, who read out a message from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The 224 km double track electrified line to be built by contarctor Kalyon Inşaat will have five stations at Digor, Tuzlucu, Iğdır, Aralık and Dilucu, as well as five tunnels, 19 cut-and-cover tunnels, 10 major bridges, three viaducts, 144 underpasses, 27 overpasses and 480 culverts. Uraloğlu said the project would cost €2·4bn, and once complete the line will have a capacity of 15 million tonnes of freight per year.
The project has been included in Turkey’s annual investment programme since 2022, with a projected construction time of seven years. In July this year the government announced that the project had secured a US$2·8bn external financing package led by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, in partnership with Sweden’s EKN Export Credit Agency and the OeKB export credit agency of Austria.
The project was subsequently given a further boost with the announcement that Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to conclude a peace deal which would involve the development of the Zangezur Corridor — to be renamed as the Trump Route for International Peace & Prosperity — which would link Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea ports with Naxçıvan and Turkey through southern Armenia.
‘The Zangezur Corridor will strengthen economic cooperation between Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia and consolidate regional peace’, said Uraloğlu. ‘It will further strengthen the socio-economic relations between Asia and Europe.’
In his message, President Erdoğan said the line would help boost production and exports in eastern and southeast Turkey and improve connections between the Caspian and Mediterranean regions.
