At a railway station in the eastern Turkish border town of Kars, Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili and Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev held a ground breaking ceremony for the $290 million Turkish section of the railway. 

The three countries are already linked by the BP-led Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas line but trade links between Turkey and the Caucasus region are limited. 

A tender last September for construction of the 76-km (47-mile) Turkish stretch of the railway was won by the Ozgun Yapi-Celikler joint venture with a bid of $289.8 million, the lowest of 14 bids. 

The railroad is expected to become operational in 2011 and carry one million passangers and 6.5 million tones of cargo annually, forming a key transport connection between Asia and Europe, officials said Thursday.

It is seen very important since it will enable the Central Asian republics, world’s new oil and natural gas centers with an uninterrupted railway link.

The 29-kilometer part of it will be built from Turkey's border to Akhalkalaki, Georgia, which will also rehabilitate the current railway line from this city to Tbilisi.

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