BAKU-TBILISI-KARS BRINGS NEW HOPES FOR (MOST OF) THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
By M. Alkhazashvili
(Translated by Diana Dundua)
The Messenger, Georgia
Nov 27 2007
On November 21, in the once out of the way village of Marabda, three
presidents stood together to inaugurate the start of construction on
the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad.
Mikheil Saakashvili, who resigned as the president on Sunday to begin
a bid for a new term in early elections, hosted Turkish President
Abdullah Gul and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev as they cut the
ribbon on the newest project to bolster the unfulfilled promise of the
Silk Road transport corridor Georgia has long hoped to be. Once the
railroad is built, cargo can ride the rails from Shanghai to Calais
with hardly a break in between. After a long-delayed tunnel is dug
under the Bosporus, Georgia and Turkey will be have direct links to
a continent they both are intent on joining. The benefits are many:
the economic boost, the security guarantees which accompany the
role of a transit state. The rail project will even contribute to
global security, proclaimed the Azerbaijani president, by opening
more options for cargo passage across Eurasia. The Russian news
agency Regnum estimates the project will increase cargo turnover in
Azerbaijan by 30 percent.
For Georgia, Saakashvili said, the railroad will be a "window to
Europe" after losing control of the rail connection to Russia and
beyond which runs through secessionist Abkhazia.
Armenian officials, meanwhile, downplay the significance of the
project. Yerevan has previously had harsh words for the railway,
which by Turkish and Azerbaijani design will isolate the country.
Neither country has diplomatic relations with Armenia, which fought
a protracted war with Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"The project is of more symbolic than economic importance," Regnum
quoted one Armenian official as saying. Some skeptics have suggested
any extra cargo revenue will be offset by less activity in Georgia’s
seaports.
The project presented a sticky conflict of interests for Georgia,
which counts the US as its top foreign ally and benefactor but Turkey
and Azerbaijan as key regional trade partners. Washington opposed
the railroad for bypassing Armenia.
Tbilisi has now unequivocally embraced the railroad, however, and for
good reasons. When construction is complete, Georgia-and Marabda-will
be that much less out of the way.