Yerevan/Mediamax/. The newly elected President of Abkhazia Alexander Ankvab expressed the readiness to open a rail transit to Armenia.

Meanwhile, he noted that the solution to this issue depends not only on Abkhazia. Alexander Ankvab said that the repairs of the railway stretching from Russian border to Sukhumi are due to be completed soon, the “Kommersant” paper reads today.

The leader of the Georgian opposition "Free Democrats” Party, Irakly Alasania, said recently that the issue of restoring the Abkhaz railway linking Russia and Armenia was seriously discussed in 2005.

“We have to start talking to Russian Federation. Issues that we can’t resolve today shouldn’t become an obstacle for talking about other things. It will be very hard for us to enter Abkhazia from humanitarian and cultural viewpoints without normalizing relations with Russia. Further on, relations with Abkhazia should be transferred into industrial, trade, infrastructural relations step by step, about which we talked still back in 2005. We said then that the railway passing from Russian to Armenia should start functioning,” Irakly Alasania said in the interview to “Echo of Moscow” radio station.

In December 2005 Armenian Minister of Transport and Communications Andranik Margarian spoke of the readiness of the Armenian side to take “immediate participation” in the restoration of the Abkhaz railway. The minister noted then that the Russian, Georgian and Abkhaz experts had already finished the study of the railroad bed and now Russian, Georgian and Abkhaz authorities had to take a political decision on launching the construction stage.

In October 2005, Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said in Yerevan that “Armenia, Russia, Georgia and Abkhazia would, most likely, set up a consortium to restore the Abkhaz railway.”

U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Ordway noted then that his country “didn’t object” to the restoration of the railway communication through the Abkhaz part of the railway. At the same time, he said, the resumption of the railway communication through the territory of Abkhazia would require much more means than the rehabilitation of Kars-Gyumri railway linking Turkey and Armenia.

In 2003, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian said: “If Georgian authorities exhibit political will, they will be able to persuade their people of the need to put the Abkhaz railway into operation.”