Tajikistan interested in joining railways of Azerbaijan

The connection of these railways could contribute to the future connection of routes of Central Asia with Europe, he noted.

The memorandum on construction of the Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Turkmenistan railway was signed in March 2013 by the three countries’ presidents. It was planned to put the railway into operation in 2018.

The construction of the railway’s Turkmen section is already completed. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) planned to help in the construction of the railway’s parts in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, but later, it suspended the support for this project due to the tense situation in Afghanistan.

Saidov also noted that the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which is being built, is of interest to Tajikistan in order to diversify the country’s transit and transportation directions and the country intends to take advantage of these opportunities.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is planned to be put into operation in late 2016. The peak capacity of the railway will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

The ambassador said that the cooperation in the transit and transportation sphere, the use of Azerbaijan’s transit opportunities and organization of transit transportation of cargos from Tajikistan via the Trans-Caucasus corridor are of great importance for mutual economic relations between Tajikistan and Azerbaijan.

He recalled that the biggest Tajik Aluminum Company TALCO transports its goods using Azerbaijan’s waterways and railways.

Moreover, Tajikistan is one of the active participants on the revival of the Great Silk Road as part of the TRACECA project and the Permanent Secretariat of the intergovernmental commission, which is located in Baku.