Georgian and Azerbaijani officials will meet in Baku on July 18-19 to discuss the technical details of the Baku-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway project. The line, when finished, will link Azerbaijan with Turkey via Georgia.

Georgia’s deputy economy minister, Davit Natroshvili, and chief of the Georgian state-run Railway Company, Irakli Ezugbaia, will be in Baku to work out the details and terms of a tender for the repair of the 192-kilometer portion of the railway line passing through Georgia.

They will also discuss the construction of a new 29 kilometer-long section of railway from Akhalkalaki to the Turkish border. Its completion, linking the two countries’ railway networks, is the missing link in the entire project.

Azerbaijan and Georgia signed an agreement in January 2007 in Tbilisi, according to which Azerbaijan will lend USD 200 million to Georgia to finance the construction and rehabilitation of its portion of the Baku-Akhalkalaki-Kars railway.