The Turkish government is moving quickly to capitalize on new economic opportunities created by US President Donald Trump‘s peace plan for Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Turkish officials held a groundbreaking ceremony on August 22 for a new 224-km rail line stretching from the eastern Turkish hub of Kars to Dilucu at the frontier with Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. The Kars-Dilucu rail line is envisioned as the largest section of a new transit corridor that is the centerpiece of the Trump peace plan. The new route would be initially capable of handling up to 15 million metric tons of freight and 5.5 million passengers per year.
The possibilities opened up by the Trump plan “will increase economic cooperation in the South Caucasus and accelerate the opening of borders and the normalization of diplomatic relations,” Turkey’s minister for transport and infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, said at the groundbreaking festivities, reading a message from Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Uraloglu also described the rail link as “an international bond of steel that will further strengthen the socio-economic relations between Asia and Europe, extending from China to Europe.”
Provided the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process is finalized, the Kars-Dilucu railway will connect to an existing rail line in Nakhichevan, which, in turn, will link up with the planned “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), an envisioned transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan proper and the exclave, traversing Armenian territory. Once completed, TRIPP would become perhaps the prime route in the developing Middle Corridor network of transit routes connecting East Asia and Europe.
Many Questions Remain
