June 6 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding to build a new railroad link to ease cross-border railway cargo traffic, the Bulgarian transport ministry said.
The future railway line will connect the cities of Yambol and Elhovo in southeastern Bulgaria to Edirne in Turkey, with a new border checkpoint to be set up near the Bulgarian village of Lesovo, the transport ministry said in a press release on Monday.
Pre-investment studies for the project have been ongoing since March and the European Commission has been approached to provide funding support, the ministry added.
The new railway line will help relieve cross-border truck traffic through the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint with Turkey which totalled 1 million heavy trucks in 2022, caretaker transport minister Hristo Aleksiev said. On Monday, officials from the two countries inaugurated new cross-border lanes for refrigerated trucks at Kapitan Andreevo which is a major entry point at the outer border of the European Union and one of the busiest in Europe.
Bulgaria and Turkey agreed to increase cross-border railway traffic to 24 trains per day in 2023 from an average of 14 last year, a spokesperson for Bulgaria's National Railway Infrastructure Company told SeeNews earlier this year.