-TURKEY ESTABLISHES ELECTRONIC SILK ROAD BETWEEN CAUCASUS-EUROPE

-TURKEY ESTABLISHES ELECTRONIC SILK ROAD BETWEEN CAUCASUS-EUROPE

ANKARA (A.A) - 16.02.2009 - Turkey will help electronic connection of scholars from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia with the European Academic Web as of March, 2009.
The "Electronic Silk Road" is being implemented by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK).
Fiber optic cables from the Caucasus will pass through Turkey and reach Europe.
Titled "Black Sea Interconnection (BSI)", the project will connect 45 universities and over 150,000 scholars from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia with their European counterparts via Turkey.
The BSI project intends bridging the digital divide that exists between the South Caucasus countries and Europe by establishing a regional research and education network in the South Caucasus and connecting it to Europe.
The project involves the development of strategies for interconnecting the existing infrastructures in the region, realization of the connections and supplying operational support for the established network. The existence of interconnections between the South Caucasus countries and connection to Europe with reasonable capacities will enable introduction of new services to the region and will be an important step towards the integration of the scientific potential in the region with Europe.
The project actually began on March 1, 2008 and has a budget of two million euros.