Armenia’s rail communication with the outside world, disrupted by the weekend sabotage attack in Georgia-Gori railway (40 kilometers from Gori to Tbilisi), could cause serious consequences for the cargo transportation in the coming days through an old bridge bypassing the damaged section of the Georgian railway because the cargo transportation to Armenia is done through that method.
In this regard the Prime Minister of Armenia ordered to establish an operative headquarters, which twice a day discusses issues related to Armenian cargo transportation from Georgia and tries to find methods of solution. According to the Advisor to the RA Prime Minister and director of the operative headquarters Gagik Martirosyan the main topic of these discussions Armenian officials have been scrambling to maintain supplies of basic commodities – wheat and fuel, etc. “These goods are transported by private companies however the state cannot avoid mediating their safe transportation to Armenia,” he said and mentioned that a pack of 50 trucks was sent from Armenia to transport the cargo. When speaking of the halt of cargo unloading in the port of Poti on August 19 Martirosyan assured that their transportation to Armenia is not very urgent and that the cargo may still remain in Poti until the transportation through rails is resumed. He thinks that this option is more profitable than to transport the cargo now by trucks. According to Martirosyan at present the government also pays a great attention to the transportation of cargo through Iran instead of just focusing on Georgia. Martirosyan also said that the reason why the process of restoration of the bridge is taking so long is that it was originally decided to fix the bridge with metal knuckles. Later the decision was changed and it was agreed to use metal with cement. This last version requires more time. “Only three weeks are need for the concrete to dry out,” he said and added that the Georgian government has also decided to cosmetically repair the old bridge before the full restoration of the new one. He assured that perhaps in the evening the bridge may be subject to exploitation and the electrical conjunctions will also be complete. Martirosyan believes that the next exploitation of the bridge will depends on further relations between Georgia and Russia. He also mentioned that besides the issues originated because of transportation the conflict of Georgia and Ossetia had its negative influence on the number of vehicles raveling from the border of Armenia-Georgia. The number of these vehicles has essentially decreased but Martirosyan finds it pretty natural.