Türkiye's Minister of Transport Abdulkadi Ulaloglu recently announced that the 325 km railway line connecting Türkiye's Karkamis and Syria's border Nusaibin has fully resumed operation. After large-scale repair, this strategic passage, which has been interrupted and maintained for 13 years, has become a core part of Türkiye's "development path" plan, aiming to open up land exports to Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

Technical recovery of border arteries

The railway trunk line that has been restarted this time not only repairs the main line, but also covers a 25 kilometer branch line from Senute to Mardin. During the shutdown period from 2011 to 2024, there was a serious risk of settlement on the road section due to lack of maintenance. Türkiye's state-owned railway company has implemented high-intensity engineering intervention, including replacing more than 2500 bridge sleepers, clearing the ballast of 100 km of line, and implementing structural reinforcement of the Karkamis Bridge on the Euphrates River. In addition, the engineering team also repaired 750 meters of unstable roadbed and laid a new flood control and drainage system to cope with the frequent extreme weather in the area.

Uraloglu emphasized that the revival of the route is a prelude to a larger geopolitical strategy. Türkiye is planning to extend the railway from Nusaibin eastward to Owakoi, which borders Iraq, and cooperate with the new 200 km road section in Iraq to finally reach Fao Port. Once this "development road" is completed, Türkiye's industrial capacity will be directly transported to the Persian Gulf, greatly shortening the logistics cycle to the Asian market.

The Three Kingdoms Alliance and Land Bridge Vision

While repairing the domestic road network, Türkiye is accelerating the construction of transnational cooperation mechanism. On April 7th, Uraloglu signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding with the transportation ministers of Jordan and Syria in Amman, officially launching the construction of the North South Economic Corridor aimed at connecting the three countries. The core of the agreement lies in reviving the historic Hejaz Railway (connecting Damascus and Amman) and utilizing Jordan's Aqaba Port as an outlet to create a sea rail intermodal hub. Keywords: Middle East news, logistics corridor

Türkiye disclosed that a high-level technical delegation will visit Saudi Arabia to discuss the possibility of connecting the railway network in the Arabian Peninsula with the standard gauge systems in Central Asia and Europe. According to the analysis, with Syria's gradual return to the Arab League, Türkiye is trying to use its infrastructure construction capacity to occupy a leading position in post-war reconstruction and build Anatolia into a super logistics transit station connecting Europe, Asia and Africa.Editor/Cheng Liting