Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Tuesday that Turkey had reached preliminary agreements with six international financial institutions to secure $6.75 billion for a new rail line across the Bosphorus, which would be Turkey’s biggest foreign-financed rail project.
Once completed, the line through northern Istanbul is expected to carry 33 million passengers and 30 million tonnes of cargo annually, he said, adding that it would usher in a “new era of logistics” by increasing the country’s rail capacity connecting Asia and Europe.
The funding will support the 125-kilometer (78-mile) Northern Ring Railway project, which will carry passengers and cargo from Gebze to Halkali via the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, which connects Istanbul’s two main airports.
The minister said preliminary agreements have been reached with the World Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, OPEC Fund for International Development, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
“We aim to complete the bidding process, hand over the site and be able to start (construction) work by the end of this year,” Ulaloglu said.
Uninterrupted rail freight transport across the Bosphorus is currently only possible for limited hours each day through the Marmaray railway tunnel. According to the ministry’s website, only 1.7 million tons of cargo were transported through Marmaray from 2020 to October 2025.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Can Sezer; Editing by Andrei Khalip)
