Adil Karaismailoğlu, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, pointed out that besides the Iraqi government, they also held railway-specific talks with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Gulf countries, and said that years later, it will be possible to go from Kars to Baku with the Eastern Express.
Karaismailoğlu continued his words as follows: “When you take this high-speed train from Gaziantep to Habur and via Mosul to Baghdad, you are actually building a new spice route. These are the lines that show the biggest logistics opportunities, commercial corridors and the power of Turkey. On the one hand, we plan them. Here, trade, exports and mobility will increase. It will bring great activity to Adıyaman and the region. It will increase production, employment and tourism here. While we are making plans for 2053, we are also designing the logistics corridors in the world.”
Karaismailoğlu underlined that Turkey's divided road length has reached 29 thousand kilometers and noted that they aim to increase this to 2053 thousand kilometers in 38. Karaismailoğlu stated that they plan to increase the railway network, which is 13 thousand 100 kilometers today, to 2053 thousand kilometers in 28, and said that the current cost of railway investments, which are currently ongoing throughout the country, has reached 27 billion dollars. Emphasizing that the number of provinces with high-speed trains will increase from 8 to 54 with the completion of the investments, Karaismailoğlu said, “When we connect this to international corridors, the Eastern Express will be able to travel from Kars to Baku years later. We are planning its infrastructure from today. Again, we are planning Baku from the Zangezur Corridor via Nakhchivan. We are talking about an international and world's most important spice routes stretching from Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, Adıyaman, Mardin to the Persian Gulf. We have an investment program. We are following it,” he said.