ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey has broken ground on a railway connection from its northeastern Kars province to Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave, moving to take advantage of a U.S.-brokered peace deal signed this month between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The railway will be part of the Southern Caucasus transit corridor, to which the U.S. gained exclusive development rights. It is meant to boost economic ties between Azerbaijan and Armenia and boost energy exports.
Management and development of the so-called Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, which will run through southern Armenia and connect Azerbaijan's mainland with the Nakhchivan enclave that borders Turkey, was a stumbling block to initial peace efforts.
The 224-kilometre (140 mile) railway will connect Turkey's Dilucu border gate with Nakhchivan and its main railway line in neighbouring Kars, Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said at a groundbreaking ceremony.
It will have capacity to carry 5.5 million passengers and 15 million metric tons of cargo a year.
"This corridor will strengthen economic cooperation between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and reinforce regional peace," Uraloglu said, adding that the project will help open borders and normalise diplomatic relations in the Southern Caucasus.
Turkey last month secured 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in green financing for the railway from a group of lenders including Japan's MUFG Bank, Sweden's EKN and Austria's OeKB export credit agencies, and a unit of the Islamic Development Bank.
When the sections of the railway in Nakhchivan, Armenia and mainland Azerbaijan are completed, an international trade route stretching from China to Britain will be more efficient, Uraloglu said.
($1 = 0.8621 euros)
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Jonathan Spicer, Kirsten Donovan)
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