U.S. DIPLOMAT SAYS WASHINGTON WANTS RAILWAY CONNECTING TURKEY WITH AZERBAIJAN TO RUN THROUGH ARMENIA

 
BAKU, JANUARY 10, ARMENPRESS: “We have always backed all projects which are designed to boost transport links between neighbor countries and we have been trying to develop projects aimed at linking the West and East and certainly we would like that a railway that is supposed to connect Turkey with Azerbaijan runs through Armenia,” a senior U.S. diplomat was quoted as saying by Azerbaijani Press Agency (APA).
The diplomat, Mathew Bryza, a deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs and a U.S. cochairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, said the U.S. administration cannot block the construction of a railway that Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan want to build, but added that the U.S. hopes that in near future a transportation scheme that will include all the countries of the region will emerge.
Last December U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law a resolution imposing a ban on U.S. financing of a proposed railroad that would bypass Armenia. The proposed new Caucasus rail line – at the urging of Turkey and Azerbaijan – would circumvent Armenia.
Promoters of the project have sought, even at the planning stages, to secure U.S. financing for this undertaking, prompting Congressional friends of Armenia to preemptively block such attempts.
In October of 2005, the European Commission voiced official opposition to the proposed Caucasus railroad bypass of Armenia. A formal statement by the Commission’s Directorate General for Transport and Energy noted that its construction was both unnecessary and inefficient in light of the existing railroad connecting Kars, Gyumri of Armenia and Tbilisi.