Italy and Syria are discussing railway cooperation through meetings held between Syrian Minister of Transport, Yarob Bader and Italian State Railway (Intalferr) in Damascus. Cooperation includes conducting a study on developing the Damascus-Aleppo railway according to a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Ministry, the General Establishment of Syrian Railways (CFS) and the Italian Embassy to Damascus last September for the improvement and modernization of the existing Syrian railway line.

The MoU stated that Italferr is to develop a feasibility study, funded by the signing parties for upgrading infrastructure and technological aspects of the Damascus-Aleppo line.

The study includes the increasing of the speed of the Damascus-Aleppo train reaching 155 km/hour and improvement of railway safety.

"This project is not only a local necessity but has an importance at a regional level. Therefore, the integration of this project with other neighboring railway systems is very important. The Damascus-Aleppo line will be part of a network connecting Turkey towards Europe and Jordan towards Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and will match the specific speeds of the network”, said that Minister.

As for cooperation with Turkey, Director General of the CFS discussed last week cooperation with the Deputy Director-General of Turkish State Railways (TCDD) for running an Aleppo-Gazientep, Turkey. The project will include inspection of the situation of the railway connecting the two cities, implementing a maintenance programme and running two train trips weekly to Gazientep on Train Set, a train with five coaches that accommodate up to 283 passengers.

The two sides also discussed the possibility of increasing the number of passengers and commodities between Syria and Turkey in the future.