By launching a railway corridor stretching from Mecca to Istanbul via Amman and Damascus, with potential extensions to Oman and Lebanon , Saudi Arabia and Turkey could diversify their economies and expand their geopolitical influence. But while an integrated rail network could reshape regional trade, at a time when the vulnerabilities of the Strait of Hormuz have become obvious, fully replacing the strategic waterway remains unlikely.
Gaining momentum after two agreements were signed by the Turkish Transport Minister Abdul Kadir Uraloglu and Saudi Saleh bin Nasir Al Jasser in early June, the initiative is to be implemented by the Turkiye State Railways and the Saudi Arabian Railways.
Establishing a framework for railway connectivity, logistics integration and customs cooperation, the agreements aim to create what could become one of the Middle East’s most significant transport corridors.
Amid growing concerns over supply-chain disruptions, this railway plan could become a dependable transport option for the economic survival of the region.
Following close evaluation of the Syria-Jordan-Iraq transit route, two successful test runs were carried out from Turkey through Iraq to Saudi Arabia, confirming the corridor’s viability. Beyond freight transport, discussions have focused on high-speed rail systems, railway rolling stock, logistics, infrastructure and customs facilitation.
Joint feasibility studies for the railway are expected to conclude by the end of this year. And once completed, Ankara and Riyadh would be having a reliable overland route connecting the Arabian Peninsula to Europe.
Meanwhile, Ankara has also signed a trilateral transport memorandum this April in Amman, with Syria and Jordan, aimed at revamping the rail connection between Turkey and Syria’s Aleppo, before linking to the existing Aleppo-Damascus-Jordan route. Turkish authorities are also restoring railway lines near the Syrian border that were out of service since 15 years. According to transport minister Uraloglu, in the initial stages, Turkey would be connected to Aleppo, utilizing the existing Aleppo-Damascus-Jordan network while talks continue with Saudi authorities. Railroading Hormuz? Despite its potential to enhance regional connectivity, the proposed rail corridor may not replace maritime transport as sea lanes remain indispensable and the cheapest option for the movement of large volumes of oil, liquefied natural gas, and bulk cargo that railway networks cannot adequately accommodate.
Discussing whether the corridor could become the center-piece of Middle Eastern trade, Professor Dr. Hasan Unal , an International Relations and Turkish foreign policy expert, told The New Arab it would be a “bit too much to think that this project[ the Saudi-Turk railway] would replace Hormuz with a land alternative. For one thing, this is a trade route whereas Hormuz is mostly used for oil and gas transportation in huge amounts.”
At some stage, he added, more Gulf Arab countries could join with “short detours for themselves”, as it is significant in terms of trade, “given that the Syria route was close or unusable for a long time.”
Cautioning against viewing the railway as a substitute for regular trade and shipping, Ussal Sahbaz, managing partner at M&P Istanbul Hub, a regional public affairs advisory, told The New Arab that the Saudi-Turkey railway could not become an alternative to sea routes.
Pointing out that sea transport is “10 times cheaper and will always handle a larger capacity,” Sahbaz observed that, what these land corridors actually create is “an alternative capacity for times that the sea routes do not function and for high-value cargo that is worth being carried through the land.”
Giving examples, he said that, “We have seen closures of the sea routes multiple times in the last few years — not only due to the recent Hormuz blockade, but also due to accidents in Suez , piracy in the Arabian Sea, etc. So these routes provide a safety net. They complement the sea routes, not competing with them.” A ‘Survival Strategy’ But geopolitical tensions, mounting maritime security risks, and intense supply-chain disruptions have made regional countries search for solutions, and the Saudi-Turk railway corridor could still end up as the best fall-back trade option.
Zeynep Gizem Özpınar, a Turkish foreign policy expert , told The New Arab that after Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and attacking vessels attempting to transit the waterway, “the energy export architecture has been subjected to its most severe test in history.”
As a result, she said that the Turk-Saudi railway project “sits at the heart of the Gulf energy system as a survival strategy,” despite its inadequacies.
Noting that the inability of existing pipelines to fill the void has also made the railway project assume urgency, she explained that only the Saudi East-West pipeline, a 1200 kilometer artery, could “meaningfully reroute exports by linking Gulf oilfields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu , though it lacked the capacity to compensate for the volume lost when Hormuz closed.” Economic ambitions Primarily, economic considerations are driving the project. Since 2012, trade and transport links between Ankara and Riyadh have dwindled drastically from around 20,000 annual trips previous, due to regional frictions .
Aiming to restore and surpass the previous volume of trade, Turkish Transport Minister Uraloglu has described the removal of transport barriers as “a strategic necessity.”
For Saudi Arabia, the railway aligns closely with Vision 2030 objectives to turn the Kingdom into a global logistics hub, while for Turkey, the corridor can turn into a bridge between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Complementing Ankara’s Development Road initiative with Iraq, there could be opportunities to connect to Central Asia.
Highlighting the expected impetus to the Turkish construction sector, Sahbaz noted that, “These corridors also bring spillovers. For instance, the Saudi-Turkey railway corridor will leverage Turkey’s construction capacity. It will reinforce the sovereign manufacturing development in Saudi Arabia, which is critical for economic diversification and security. It may also reinforce stability in the countries that it passes through.”
Sahbaz observed that it would be really interesting if these corridors could “catalyze Saudi-Turkish joint investments in manufacturing in Syria, a country that has a long tradition of entrepreneurship but has recently suffered from conflicts.”
If this happens, he said, the corridors will go beyond infrastructure investments and contribute to the regional prosperity. “So the expectations should be shaped to see the new Hijaz railway not as an alternative to existing routes, but as a complementary route that will create new economic opportunities.” Reviving the Hejaz Railway Adding a powerful historic dimension, the railway network would revive sections of the historic Hejaz Railway. Launched by Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1900, the railway was one of the empire’s most ambitious infrastructure projects. Now more than a century later, the modern version would link Turkey with the Gulf via Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia before extending onwards to Oman.
Named after the Hejaz region in the western Arabian Peninsula, the line ran from Damascus to Medina, then continued to Istanbul and included a branch line to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. Entirely funded by Muslim donations, it became both a strategic transport artery and a symbol of political and religious unity.
According to Ozpinar, the total cost of the project amounted to nearly a fifth of the Ottoman budget, though at that time, “the Ottoman empire was still carrying the financial wounds of the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War while paying war reparations to Russia.”
She noted that the Europeans declared it impossible, but through this project, “Abdülhamid demonstrated to the world that the Ottoman state could construct an entirely independent Muslim endeavor, free of the European financial institutions on which it chronically depended.”
Practically as well, Ozpinar said that the grueling caravan journey from Damascus to Medina (over forty days by camel) was reduced to a matter of days. But the “catastrophe of the First World War rendered vast stretches of the line inoperative” and T.E Lawrence’s systemic sabotage of the line during the Arab revolt is “proof that railways could serve both as a target and instrument of geopolitical conflict.” A new Middle East Since the Saudi-Turkish rail corridor has left out Haifa port in Israel and Fujairah port in the UAE, could the initiative signal the formation of a wider geopolitical realignment? By prioritizing a route through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey, the project appears to reflect shifting regional calculations not just driven by economic interests, but also by security concerns, and changing diplomatic relationships as well.
Mulling over this aspect, Unal said that, “a large part of ‘Haifa port talk’ has been political rather than trade and economic-oriented”.
Especially, he said, when “we are at the thresholds of a new Middle East with diminished influence of the US and Israel, and the Saudi-Turkey railway project is economically much more viable and strategically more doable after the Iran war.” Describing how the railway corridor fits in with Ankara’s long-term vision, Ozpinar quoted Transport Minister Uraloglu’s description of the project as “an uninterrupted north-south trade axis linking Europe to the Gulf”.
In her opinion, this signals a vision that runs considerably deeper than transport diplomacy, and the geopolitical competition is best examined through the lens of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which seeks to connect India to Europe via the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel — bypassing Turkey entirely.
Assessing that the Turkey-Saudi agreement is partly the product of that tension, Ozpinar said that Riyadh’s willingness to lean toward the Ankara axis before signing any normalization agreement with Jerusalem speaks for itself.
Ultimately, Ozpinar said, Ankara’s strongest card is the absence of alternatives. No Gulf state can afford the luxury of relying solely on maritime routes in the world that is now taking shape. “With Gulf states acknowledging that the trust deficit created by Tehran may never be repaired, and moving to diversify their energy routes accordingly, the Turkey-Saudi railway project represents the long-term energy security realignment the region can no longer defer.”