Former President Suleyman Demirel wrote this article for The New Anatolian readers on the occasion of the 1st Black Sea and 4th Silk Road Conference organized by the International Road Federation.

Three weeks ago in Belgrade, Serbia, the Foreign Ministers of 11 of the 12 Member States of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation signed the Memorandum of Understanding for the development of the Black Sea Ring Highway. The twelfth state is expected to sign the agreement soon.

This tangible achievement of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation gives me the greatest pleasure, because fifteen years ago, as Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, together with the Heads of State and Government of ten other Black Sea states, I signed the agreement establishing this Organization.

The coordinated development of the Black Sea Ring Highway will create a network of about 7100 kilometers of upgraded roads around the Black Sea. The goal is for a road to be built that will guarantee security, speed and comfortable traffic, and will facilitate the economic and social development in the region.

It has been centuries since the last discovery of a new continent. Yet, something like this is happening today in Central Asia. It has been customary to think of Europe and Asia as separate lands, divided by a huge and forbidding territory. The camel caravans that traversed this middle zone were too few and too infrequent to provide a permanent economic link between them, let alone to enable the people of Asia and Europe to recognize their continents as complementary parts of a single land mass.

In the 14th century, it would take a caravan up to a year to make the 6000 km trip, or 10,000 km if one included the back roads and side trips. Silk was the main commodity moving from east to west. From the opposite direction came wool, ivory, glass and precious metals. Over time, all sorts of goods were carried along these roads, from the most expensive cloth to the most mundane ox hide. But few, if any, individuals made the entire trip. Instead, goods were passed along through an intricate network of middlemen who rarely travelled outside their own region.

Similarly now, most of the traffic along the Silk Roads travels relatively short distances, and international traffic is less than one in ten of all vehicles. International transit is, however, increasing and is forecast to become a dominant factor in the future. Most of the international road traffic is carried on a core network of around 20,000 km of mainly two-lane roads.

Almost half of the world's cargo traffic is made up of goods transported between Europe and Asia. Now, the international trade of the Central Asian states amounts to about 50 billion USD, of which around 5 million USD is trade among the Central Asian Republics themselves. It is estimated that freight operations on the Silk Roads create revenue of over 1 billion USD for transport companies and transit countries annually.

As Prime Minister and after that as President of the Republic of Turkey, in the 1990s I headed the negotiations with Caucasian and Central Asian states to re-establish the Silk Road railways, filling in the missing links between Mashad, Iran and Turkmenistan, and between Kars, Turkey and Tbilisi, Georgia. The "new Silk Roads" have enormous potential for the entire Eurasian continent, and especially for the countries of greater Central Asia, which they must traverse.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Commission, Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, Economic Cooperation Organization, Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe all support programs to rebuild transit routes and corridors of trade across Eurasia? I was very pleased to note the tangible support that all of these organizations have given to this conference.

Many states, notably China and Japan, have embraced the expansion of free trade across the emerging Eurasian continent as an effective engine for development, an efficient means of creating jobs, and a reliable method of generating governmental income on a continent-wide basis.

Over the last decade, the International Road Federation has supported the redevelopment of the ancient Silk Roads with a series of conferences focusing on the practical aspects of the rehabilitation of these roads. The last of these conferences was hosted by the Government of the People's Republic of China in 2004 in the ancient capital Xi'an, which is at one end of the Silk Road network. It is particularly appropriate, therefore, that this conference was held at the other end of the Silk Road, in Istanbul.

The First Black Sea and Fourth Silk Road Conference organized by the International Road Federation was perfectly timed to act as a launch pad for the practical work that needs to be done. The ministerial discussions that were held will set the strategic priorities for the development of the road infrastructure in the region.

The sessions focused on the geopolitical background, road policy and quality, user needs, the legal framework and the financing of priority projects. Representatives from all of the states of the region presented their plans for the development of the road infrastructure in their countries.

Without doubt, we had the ingredients for a successful conference. The timing was excellent, we had highly prominent speakers and a set of clear objectives to make the Black Sea Ring Highway and the new Silk Roads a reality. We are set to deliver the socio-economic benefits of the improved infrastructure to the people of this region.


Former President Suleyman Demirel wrote this article for The New Anatolian readers on the occasion of the 1st Black Sea and 4th Silk Road Conference organized by the International Road Federation.