Betghehem Arabyan, the general director of the “Kentron” TV company, wrote on his Facebook page: “If the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway is so savior, why isn’t a single resident of Akhalkalaki or Ninotsminda using it?

Pashinyan announced that the Akhalkalaki-Kars railway is no longer open for exports from Armenia and imports to Armenia. He mentioned the word no longer, to show that there was no alternative to the Russian bans.

First, that railway started working from 2020, and in 2024, the first cargo train from Baku to Kars was officially resumed with 20 containers.

However, Pashinyan does not say the truth about the possibilities. before making loud announcements about the railway and giving misleading information to his own electorate, the journalist-prime minister definitely wondered if there is a single person from Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda who is engaged in agriculture and supplies Georgia with agricultural products, who uses the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway to export his goods. There is not that one person.

And now with the facts.

Mikheil Saakashvili’s project, the Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway, aimed to work in two directions: passenger and freight, visa liberalization, which happened in 2017, to sit through the door and reach Turkey and Europe…

Even then, the local government told its electorate that the local product would be exported to the European market.
That railway never worked for passenger purposes, it worked sometimes for freight, then it was interrupted, the reason is that the width of the railway in Georgia is 1520 mm according to the standards of the Central Railway, while in Turkey it is European standards with a difference of about 1 m, and there are regular interruptions.

In addition, cargo wagons need to be changed in Akhalkalak, which slows down and also increases the cost of cargo transportation. And the purpose of the railway is fast cargo transportation, otherwise there is the sea, which is slow and affordable.

In addition, the railway capacity is limited, incomparably limited compared to Russian or sea routes.
According to various statistical data, in 2021, the Azerbaijani side transported 1,770 wagons of cargo on that railway.
In 2025, Georgia transported about 13 million tons of cargo on the Georgian Railway, of which about 58 percent is transit cargo from other countries, 34.5 percent is international import, and only 7.5 percent is domestic cargo.

Why can’t they use that railway in Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda?
First, it is expensive, it is beneficial only in the case of transit or transportation of large containers and industrial cargo.
It is not available to farmers engaged in agriculture.

If that two-line was so savior, then the Armenian communities in Georgia, for example, would not have a problem selling potatoes when there is a fertile year. They would get on the train from their front door and take their goods to sell.
But what is being done? they either sell the agricultural product to middlemen who visit their community, or load the cars onto trucks and deliver them to the Georgian market. The same is the case with cheese production, and every farmer in that region produces tens of tons of cheese.

Therefore, when the Akhalkalaki-Kars railway is not used, for example, the resident of Ghulalis village, whose train passes almost in his yard, it is unlikely that the resident of Armavir will load grapes, cross the Armenian-Georgian border, then reach Akhalkalaki, and transport 20 tons of fruit by train. “Unfortunately, the Akhalkalaki-Kars opportunity is not real and is not an alternative, it is generated by falsehood.”

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