The cost of rebuilding the historic Hejaz Railway route between Turkey and Syria's Aleppo is estimated to cost $100 million, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said.

He said that Turkey and Saudi Arabia plan to build a railway linking the two countries with Jordan and Syria over the next three or four years, the Daily Sabah newspaper reported, citing Al Jazeera.

The rail link will allow for the transport of goods, oil, natural gas and people between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Europe, the minister said.

The network may later include the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen, Uraloğlu revealed.

The Hejaz Railway linked Istanbul to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, as well as Damascus and parts of Yemen. It was originally constructed between 1900 and 1908 under Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II and stretched approximately 1,750 kilometers.

Uraloğlu said the route from Saudi Arabia to Jordan's border had been completed, while the link from Islahiye to Kilis and Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey, near the border with Syria, had been completed.

Last week, Turkey and Saudi Arabia signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) covering cooperation in logistics services and the railway sector.

Uraloglu said Ankara plans to modernise the Hejaz Railway and extend it to Oman as part of plans to create an alternative trade route to the Strait of Hormuz.

(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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