Baku, June 29 (AZERTAC). First rails have been welded on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) line in a ceremony held in the Turkish province of Kars.

Turkish Minister of Transport, Shipping and Communications Binali Yildirim, Minister of Transport of Azerbaijan Ziya Mammadov and Georgian Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Giorgi Kvirikashvili attended at the ceremony.

Addressing the event, Ziya Mammadov said BTK would allow people travel from one region to another. “By building a railway corridor our three countries have linked Asia with Europe.”

“Business people will take advantage of this corridor for the transportation of goods.”

Mammadov stressed that the work on the Azerbaijani section of the pipeline was going rapidly, adding "this project is a world wide known project."

Turkish Minister Yildirim stressed that this project was not only a project of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, but also the project of Central Asian countries, China, the Balkans, the Middle East and even the EU. “Welfare of countries and the region will increase even more thanks to BTK.”

"This is an international and regional cooperation project. This project is also a welfare and development project. These territories have been the routes of Silk Road between east and west for centuries, and now are connected with modern railways. A transit way for passengers and cargoes will be established from China to London within the scope of this project," said Yildirim.

It is planned to construct a new 105 kilometre branch railway as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the section of the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda railway will be reconstructed in Georgia which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a centre in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing train tracks in Georgia to the European one.

Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo in the initial stages.

In future, with completion of the Marmara project (construction of a tunnel under the Bosporus), access to Europe will be provided using the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.