Türkiye has renovated 350 kilometers of railway tracks along its border with Syria. The railway will serve as a key link in the Development Road, a railway project to connect the Persian Gulf to European markets through Türkiye.
The rehabilitation included a 325-kilometre railway between Karkamış and Nusaybin along the Syrian border, as well as a 25-kilometre railway to the city of Mardin. “We have not only made the line on the Syrian border operational, but we have also given it a stronger and more durable structure with its infrastructure”, commented the Turkish transport and infrastructure minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu.
Uraloğlu pointed out that much of the infrastructure has been torn down and rebuilt from scratch. The railway had been in disrepair for over a decade already. “Re-commissioning the line will both increase freight transportation capacity and contribute to regional integration”, the minister said. Trains have been running on the railway since 31 March.
Development Road
The Karkamış-Nusaybin and Mardin-Şenyurt railways are intended to support the Ovaköy-Nusaybin railway. The latter will be built as part of the Development Road project, according to Uraloğlu.
The Development Road project seeks to connect Iraq’s Umm Qasr port in the Gulf to the Turkish border. From there, freight can make their way onto European markets. Türkiye, for its part, is also working on more rail capacity from Asia-Europe operations across the Bosphorus.
Such a diversified route seems particularly important in light of the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. However, it will take years before such an alternative transport artery is operational. The World Bank has supported the construction of Iraqi railway infrastructure from Umm Qasr to Mosul, in the north, with close to a billion US dollars.