Azerbaijan’s efforts to open a freight rail connection to Europe via Turkey have focused on two proposed routes transiting the Nakhchivan exclave. But there is a third alternative via Georgia that is getting an upgrade. 

Improvements to a 114-mile stretch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will likely be finished by April, Rovshan Rustamov, the chair of Azerbaijan Railways, recently announced. “I am thrilled to share that our modernization project is over 95 percent complete, setting a new benchmark for cargo transportation between Asia and Europe,” he wrote on his LinkedIn page. 

The modernization, which is costing an estimated $100 million, is set to boost the railway’s capacity five-fold, to 5 million tons annually. Once the upgrade is complete, a joint Georgian and Azerbaijani enterprise will take over management of the rail route. 

The work on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) route has been overshadowed by two other rail projects to connect Azerbaijan to Turkey, taking more southerly routes. Both have their complications. One, known as the Zangezur corridor, would traverse Armenian territory, prompting Baku to seek extraterritorial rights to operate it. So far, Armenia and Iran have resisted the Zangezur plan.

The other option, known as the Aras corridor, would bypass Armenia via Iran. This route has better prospects. However, while Baku and Tehran currently seem to be getting along, they have a long history of prickly relations. Both routes would create a strong connection between Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave, which is the home territory of the ruling Aliyev family.

In many respects, although it has garnered less attention of late, the BTK route seems to be the most direct freight route between Azerbaijan and Turkey and beyond. 

On March 16, President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze issued a joint statement following a meeting in Baku touting BTK’s potential, calling it “one of our most noteworthy [bilateral] achievements.” 

“The operationalization of this railway promises to foster connectivity among numerous nations,” the statement read. The two leaders also discussed ways to expand Westward-bound natural gas exports and green energy projects.

The payoff for developing freight rail capacity in the Caucasus will depend heavily on the future of European Union-China trade. Observers say the medium-term prospects for such commerce are dimming, given China’s deepening economic woes, the sclerosis of its political system and its inflexible geopolitical outlook.

The BTK route was completed in 2017, but has yet to operate at full capacity. The route received renewed attention after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which made the northern transit route through Russia unreliable and risky due to sanctions. In a report released last year, the World Bank said that it expects trade volume along all so-called Middle Corridor routes to triple by 2030.