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Closed railway link between Kars and Armenia (marked with dotted red-white line). Illustration: Maximilian Dörrbecker
Turkey prepared to open border crossing railway link
Published: Fri, 2013-11-15 08:32- Likes 2
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Was originally established 1899
Turkey could be agreeable to reopening the long-closed railway link between Kars and Armenia if Yerevan and Baku make progress in solving the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, diplomatic sources have said. Shortly before Azerbaijani President İlham Aliyev visit Turkey in November, during which “creative ideas” to create peace and stability in the region was, according to diplomatic sources, high on the agenda. One of those “creative ideas” is to reopen the Turkey-Armenia railway, contingent upon parallel progress in solving the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been occupied by Armenia for two decades, diplomatic sources told the Hürriyet Daily News in the beginning of November.
The Kars–Gyumri–Tbilisi railway line is a railway line that runs from the city of Kars in Turkey to the Armenian city of Gyumri, then from there on to Tbilisi, Georgia.
Originally completed in 1899, the railway was highly important during the Soviet era, both as the only rail link between Turkey and the USSR (Kars- Gyumri), and one of the two main railway connections between Armenia and other former Soviet Republics (Gymri-Tbilisi). While the Gyumri- Tbilisi section remains Armenia's lifeline to the outside world, the Kars-Gymri section has not been operational since 1993, when Turkey following the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan closed the border with Armenia in support for the Azeris in the war with Armenia.
Source: Hürriyet
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