Ticket to ride

This story appears both in Bakutoday and ArmeniaLiberty.org. Russia's pledge to lobby for the resuming of a rail link between Russia and Armenia:

"Our delegation will fly from Armenia to Azerbaija... and then on to Georgia in order to try to reopen [rail] traffic throughout the entire territory of the Transcaucasus," Levitin told a Russian-Armenian business forum in Yerevan.

"We do realize what a difficult task it is. We must try to solve it together with you," he added, referring to the conflicts over Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia that left Armenia without rail access to the outside world more than a decade ago.

That is surely an understatement. They are likely to get a very short hearing in Azerbaijan.
Of course this is coming from the country which sealed its borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan until this week over terrorism fears. The route of interest to Armenia is through Abkhazia, which would greatly facilitate the transporting of goods between Russia and Armenia. Rail links between Russia and Abkhazia have provoked anger from Georgia in the past, so this is far from a simple matter.

Posted by Matt on October 15, 2004 | TrackBack | Email to a friend