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Customs chiefs of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye sign a Middle Corridor protocol in Goygol

The fifth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Türkiye trilateral committee on customs sat in Goygol district on Monday: Shahin Baghirov for Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee, deputy trade minister Sezai Ucarmak for Türkiye and Revenue Service head Mamuka Baratashvili for Georgia. Faster transit procedures on the Middle Corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway were named the priorities, and a protocol was signed, APA reported at 11:50 Baku time.

By CAW Staff29 September 2026
An abstract top-down map of a border line with two crossing points and flow lines converging on them.

In APA's account the committee "extensively discussed the current state and development prospects of cooperation among the customs services of the three countries", assessed how earlier agreements had been carried out and analysed the results. The priorities it set were "the optimization of customs procedures along the Middle Corridor, acceleration of transit operations, and strengthening of practical interaction among customs services".

The working list ran to electronic data exchange and its expansion, the harmonisation of transit procedures, preliminary electronic data before a cargo reaches a border, risk management and the efficiency of customs control, and the fight against customs offences. On the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway "the sides exchanged views on further developing cooperation to facilitate transit operations".

The priorities it set were "the optimization of customs procedures along the Middle Corridor, acceleration of transit operations, and strengthening of practical interaction among customs services".

Ucarmak put the aim to reporters in a sentence Interpressnews carried at 17:10 Tbilisi time, citing Azerbaijani media: "One of our main goals is to simplify transit procedures between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, reduce waiting times at border crossing points, and create infrastructure that facilitates trade and transit by introducing international standards in these countries." The three countries, he said, "play an extremely important role in international transit and neighboring relations, as well as in trade along the East-West route".

The protocol of the meeting was signed, APA said. Its text was not published, and neither report gives a figure for waiting times at the crossings or for the transit the corridor carried this year.

The meeting came 4 days after Kobakhidze, Pashinyan and Bayramov each sold the same corridor at the United Nations in a day, and on the day Georgia signed the AIIB's €158 million for the Kakheti road in Doha. Customs procedures are the part of the corridor that costs nothing to build and that the three services have now met 5 times to align.

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