On April 28, a meeting of the Armenia-Turkey joint working group for the restoration and operation of the Gyumri-Kars railway took place in Kars. In the context of the expansion of transport communications in the region, the parties emphasized the importance of the early launch of the Gyumri-Kars railway. The RA Foreign Ministry issued an official message about this.

At this moment, how realistic is the resumption of the Gyumri-Kars railway, what does Armenia gain from the resumption of the railway?

Ara Marjanyan, UN national expert on energy issues speaking about these issues, he said that the most positive aspect of the resumption of the Kars-Gyumri railway will be that a real perspective will open to connect Kars with Nakhijevan through the territory of Armenia, instead of Kars-Igdir-Sadarak-Nakhijevan.

“This is extremely important, because I have mentioned many times that with the construction of the Kars-Igdir railway, Armenia will be under complete blockade. If the Kars-Gyumri railway is reopened, then it will be possible to carry out rail cargo transportation from Gyumri-Yerevan and Nakhijevan through the territory of the Republic of Armenia. With this step, steps to completely block Armenia will be prevented.” 168.amAra Marjanyan said in a conversation with

According to our interlocutor, after the reopening of the Gyumri-Kars railway, Armenia will have great transit opportunities to carry out cargo transportation through the territory of Armenia itself.

“Besides this, Armenia’s economy will have the opportunity to gain access to both Black Sea and Mediterranean sea ports,” A. added. Marjanyan.

The expert also emphasized that, unfortunately, there is currently no actual data on Turkey regarding the advancement of this process, but the meeting of the Armenian and Turkish delegates in Kars itself proves that some processes are underway in Turkey.

“As for Armenia’s position, the relaunch of the Gyumri-Kars railway fits into the ideology of the “Crossroads of Peace” project, it is an integral part of that project. I think this will ultimately be beneficial for Armenia and the entire region.

In my opinion, in order to implement this program, Armenia will need several tens of millions of dollars, which is not very expensive.

I would like to say one more important thing: it would be very good if the re-launching of the Gyumri-Kars high-voltage overhead line would go on in parallel, which would open up great prospects, this time from the point of view of the organization of regional electric power transmission lines,” stressed Ara Marjanyan.

Let’s remind that after the meeting of the Armenian-Turkish delegation in Kars, the US Embassy in RA became official statement spread, calling the meeting a historical progress.

Let’s remind that the Gyumri-Kars railway was closed in 1993, when the Armenian side was achieving success in the first Artsakh war by liberating the Armenian territories. Turkey stopped railway works in solidarity with Azerbaijan.

Years later, in 2005, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia signed an agreement on the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway bypassing Armenia. On October 30, 2017, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway with a total length of 826 km was inaugurated.

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