A New Asia-to-Europe Railway Route Is Opening Up
- Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line links Asia and Europe via Caucasus
- Leaders from five countries attend opening of project
Baku, Azerbaijan
Photographer: Jane Sweeney/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Azerbaijan opened a long-delayed railway through the Caucasus region that’s intended to become a new transport corridor for goods carried between Asia and Europe.
“The opening of the railway is of historic and strategic significance,” Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said at a ceremony Monday in the Caspian port city of Alat, south of the capital, Baku, to mark the departure of the first trains. The line from Baku through the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to Kars in Turkey is “the shortest and most reliable link between Europe and Asia,” Aliyev said.