Turkey Reopens 350 km Railway Along Syrian Border
Turkey brought a 350 km freight corridor along the Syrian border back into service on 31 March 2026, after 13 years of closure. Full details on works completed and the Development Road
TrainsNews 
Turkey restored a 350-kilometre rail corridor running parallel to its Syrian border on 31 March 2026, ending more than a decade of inactivity along one of the region's key freight routes.
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu confirmed the reopening on 13 April 2026. The restored corridor spans two sections: a 325-kilometre stretch between Karkamış, in Gaziantep province, and Nusaybin, in Mardin province, plus a 25-kilometre spur connecting Mardin to Şenyurt. The line had been out of service since 2011, when the outbreak of the Syrian conflict made operations unsafe and left infrastructure severely damaged.
Rehabilitation crews carried out mechanised track repairs across 310 kilometres, replaced more than 2,500 bridge sleepers, reinforced ballast along 100 kilometres of track, and strengthened bridges and culverts throughout the corridor. Uraloğlu stated that sections of the line had been entirely rebuilt rather than simply patched.
The reopened corridor is designed to slot into the Development Road project, a multimodal freight route intended to connect Iraq's Umm Qasr port on the Persian Gulf to European markets via Turkey. It will feed into the planned Ovaköy–Nusaybin railway, currently at the design stage. Ankara is also advancing a separate $110 million extension that would push the Turkish network as far as Aleppo.
Timing is significant: ongoing disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are driving a sharp shift from sea freight to overland routes. Bilateral trade between Turkey and Syria reached $3.7 billion in 2025, up 40 per cent year on year, as Ankara consolidates its position as Syria's leading foreign economic partner following the fall of the Assad government in December 2024.
Sources: Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, official statement by Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, 13 April 2026; RailFreight.com, Development Road corridor analysis, 14 April 2026; PA Turkey, Hormuz corridor briefing, 8 April 2026.
Updated 14 April 2026
