Saudi-Turkey Rail Pact Aims to Revive Hejaz Corridor to Europe

Saudi Arabia and Turkey have taken a decisive step towards reshaping the Middle East’s transport geography, signing two memorandums of understanding on railway cooperation and logistics services that lay the groundwork for a modernised Hejaz Railway corridor linking the Gulf to Europe. The agreements, inked in Riyadh by Saudi Minister of Transport and Logistic Services Saleh Al-Jasser and Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu, were described by Uraloglu as the start of “a new phase that will strengthen the exchange of expertise and technical cooperation” across logistics centres and modern rail applications. Viewed from Ankara, the pacts represent a strategic push to position Turkey as the indispensable land bridge between Asia and Europe, reviving a century-old vision that once connected Istanbul to Medina.

While the transnational ambition captures headlines, Riyadh is simultaneously pressing ahead with domestic freight infrastructure that underscores the kingdom’s broader rail modernisation drive. Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) has awarded a contract to a joint venture of OHL Arabia, the local arm of Madrid-based OHLA Group, and Egypt’s Hassan Allam Construction Saudi to build the Dammam 2nd Industrial City Railway Connection Project. The 22.7-kilometre single-track line in the Eastern Province will include a 265-metre bridge across Highway HW615, a 118-metre bridge over the Aramco pipeline corridor, and full signalling and telecommunication systems. The project, though modest in length, signals SAR’s intent to integrate industrial zones into the national network and build the engineering capacity needed for more ambitious cross-border schemes.

The Hejaz Railway’s historical resonance is inescapable. Originally built under Ottoman auspices in the early 1900s and largely destroyed during the First World War, its revival has long been a subject of regional nostalgia and geopolitical fantasy. Now, the shifting landscape in Syria and Iraq has transformed fantasy into feasibility. Uraloglu revealed that two test routes starting in Turkey and extending through Iraq to Saudi Arabia have already demonstrated the corridor’s viability, and Ankara is closely monitoring developments along Syria-Jordan-Iraq pathways. Analysts in London note that the project, if realised, would require an unprecedented level of multi-party coordination, drawing in Jordan, Syria and Iraq alongside the two signatories, and would redraw the region’s economic map by slashing freight times between the Gulf and European markets.

Western diplomats in Riyadh observe that the railway diplomacy fits into a wider pattern of Saudi infrastructure acceleration under Vision 2030, while Turkey seeks to leverage its geographic position amid supply-chain reconfigurations following the war in Ukraine. Significant obstacles remain: Syria’s security vacuum, the need for gauge and regulatory harmonisation across five jurisdictions, and the sheer capital cost of rebuilding a corridor through partly desert terrain. Yet the simultaneous pursuit of a domestic freight link in Dammam and a transnational memorandum with Turkey suggests that Saudi planners are thinking in decades, not electoral cycles. Whether the Hejaz Railway becomes a symbol of regional integration or another shelved grand design will depend on the political will that Riyadh and Ankara can sustain beyond the signing ceremony.