Pashinyan says Armenia gains rail access to EU through Türkiye

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Armenia has established a railway connection with the European Union, according to a statement published on his Telegram channel.

Pashinyan said the railway line running from Akhalkalaki in Georgia to the Turkish city of Kars enables Armenia to conduct exports and imports with the EU by rail.

“Today Armenia has railway connections with Russia via Georgia and Azerbaijan, and then with China via Russia and Kazakhstan. It now also has a connection with the European Union via Georgia and Türkiye,” Pashinyan said.

The Armenian prime minister described the development as “a major event” for the country’s economic life. He added that the route is open for both exports and imports.

Akhalkalaki is the administrative center of the municipality of the same name in Georgia’s southern Samtskhe-Javakheti region, where ethnic Armenians make up the majority of the population.

The Akhalkalaki-Kars railway forms the newly built section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars international railway line, which was officially inaugurated on Oct. 30, 2017.

Pashinyan also said railway connections between Armenia and Türkiye, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and onward to Iran via Nakhchivan are expected to open in the near future.

The Armenian prime minister said he believed all of these initiatives would soon be implemented through the transport project known as “TRIPP”.

TRIPP, short for “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”, is a strategic transit and infrastructure corridor linking Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The “Trump Route” is intended to connect Azerbaijan’s western regions with Nakhchivan, which is separated from the rest of the country by Armenia’s southern Syunik province.

The opening of the corridor through Armenian territory was included as one of the provisions of a bilateral peace agreement initialed last August by Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev under the mediation of US President Donald Trump.

In a written statement issued at the end of April, the European External Action Service said it supported a working group meeting held in Kars on restoring the railway connection between Armenia and Türkiye.

“The EU is committed to the development of transport infrastructure in the South Caucasus in line with the Regional Transport Infrastructure Development Programme, the Global Transport Network Development Strategy and the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor. Armenia and Türkiye play an important role in this process,” the statement said, according to Anadolu Agency.

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli also said in a May 13 post on X that all bureaucratic preparations for the launch of direct trade between Armenia and Türkiye had been completed.

Keceli said: “Under the new arrangement, goods traveling from Türkiye to a third country and then to Armenia, or arriving through the same route, will be able to list their final destination or point of origin in the format ‘Armenia/Türkiye’.”

Türkiye’s special representative for the normalization process with Armenia, Serdar Kilic, also reposted Pashinyan’s statement on X.

Kilic described the opening of the route for Armenia to Türkiye as “a new step in direct trade” within the normalization process.

“I hope this new step, which will also strengthen quadrilateral cooperation between Türkiye, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and make a significant contribution to regional peace and stability, will benefit all countries,” Kilic said.

The Armenian government launched its European integration process in the spring of 2024. The process began after a draft law prepared by the “Democratic Forces Platform” was submitted to parliament following the collection of more than 50,000 signatures. The bill was adopted in its final reading on March 26 and later signed by President Vahagn Khachaturyan.

Türkiye is not a member of the European Union. However, Türkiye and the EU have been linked by a Customs Union agreement in force since 1995. The agreement provides for the free movement of industrial goods.