ID :
9345
Wed, 06/04/2008 - 12:48
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/9345
The shortlink copeid
AZERI PRESIDENT, TURKISH PREMIER TO DISCUSS REGIONAL TRANSPORT PROJECT
Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, June 4 (Itar-Tass) - Regional transportprojects will be the highlights of a meeting that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan are going to have in Azerbaijan's exclave region of Nakhchivan Wednesday.
Diplomatic sources in Baku indicated that the two men will consider, first and foremost, the prospects for connecting Nakhchivan to the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline, commissioned last year to pump gas from the Caspian offshore deposit of Shah Deniz to Turkey.
Construction of a branch-out pipeline from Erzurum to Nakhchivan, an autonomous region separated by Armenian territory from the rest ofAzerbaijan, will make it possible to deliver the Caspian gas there.
The second major project is the construction of a railway betweenNakhchivan and the Turkish city of Kars and its connecting with the newly organized Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line.
Commissioning of this railway system will enable Azerbaijan to getdirect access to European railways in two or two and a half years from now and thus to substantially increase the haulage of export cargos, including the transit cargos consigned from Central Asian countries.
Also, the line between Nakhchivan and Kars will help resume directrailway communications between the exclave and other regions of Azerbaijan.
At this moment, the only way to get to the region from the capitalBaku is by air or by bus via the territory of Iran.
Land transport communications between this region and other parts of the country were severed in the early 1990's due to a conflict that flared then between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Diplomatic sources in Baku indicated that the two men will consider, first and foremost, the prospects for connecting Nakhchivan to the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline, commissioned last year to pump gas from the Caspian offshore deposit of Shah Deniz to Turkey.
Construction of a branch-out pipeline from Erzurum to Nakhchivan, an autonomous region separated by Armenian territory from the rest ofAzerbaijan, will make it possible to deliver the Caspian gas there.
The second major project is the construction of a railway betweenNakhchivan and the Turkish city of Kars and its connecting with the newly organized Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line.
Commissioning of this railway system will enable Azerbaijan to getdirect access to European railways in two or two and a half years from now and thus to substantially increase the haulage of export cargos, including the transit cargos consigned from Central Asian countries.
Also, the line between Nakhchivan and Kars will help resume directrailway communications between the exclave and other regions of Azerbaijan.
At this moment, the only way to get to the region from the capitalBaku is by air or by bus via the territory of Iran.
Land transport communications between this region and other parts of the country were severed in the early 1990's due to a conflict that flared then between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
