Wakhan Corridor

s in the Wakhan Corridor , the Great Pamir, 2 May 1874'', watercolour by Thomas Edward Gordon At its western entrance, near the Afghan town of Ishkashim, the corridor is wide. The easternmost pass, as indicated above, is the Wakhjir Pass, which connects to China and is the only border connection between that country and Afghanistan. The corridor is higher in the east than in the west; (the Wakhjir Pass is in elevation) and descends to about at Ishkashim. The Wakhjir River emerges from an ice cave on the Afghan side of the Wakhjir Pass and flows west, joining the Bozai Darya near the village of Bazai Gumbad to form the Wakhan River. The Wakhan River then joins the Pamir River near Qala-i-Panjah to form the Panj River, which then flows out of the Wakhan Corridor at Ishkashim. The Chinese consider Chalachigu Valley, the valley east of Wakhjir Pass on the Chinese side connecting Taghdumbash Pamir, to be part of the Wakhan Corridor. The high mountain valley is about long. This valley, through which the Tashkurgan River flows, is generally about wide and less than at its narrowest point. This entire valley on the Chinese side is closed to visitors; however, local residents and herders from the area are permitted access. ==History==

Although the terrain is extremely rugged, the Corridor was historically used as a trading route between Kabul and Kashgar. It appears that Alexander the Great, Song Yun, Huisheng, Xuanzang, Marco Polo, and many others came this way. The Portuguese Jesuit priest Bento de Goes crossed from the Wakhan to China between 1602 and 1606. The area was visited under the watchful eyes of the Russians by Thomas Edward Gordon in 1874, and in 1891 by Francis Younghusband, followed by Lord Curzon in 1894. While visiting Wakhan in May 1906, Aurel Stein reported that 100 pony loads of goods crossed annually to China. Early travellers used one of three routes: • A northern route led up the valley of the Pamir River to Zorkul Lake, then east through the mountains to the valley of the Bartang River, then across the Sarikol Range to China. • A southern route led up the valley of the Wakhan River to the Wakhjir Pass to China. This pass is closed for at least five months a year and is only open irregularly for the remainder. • A central route branched off the southern route through the Little Pamir to the Murghab River valley. The corridor is, in part, a political creation from the Great Game between British India and Russian Empire. In the north, an agreement between the empires in 1873 effectively split the historic region of Wakhan by making the Panj and Pamir Rivers the border between Afghanistan and the then-Russian Empire. The corridor has been closed to regular traffic for over a century built in the 1960s and improved in the 2020s, The remoteness of the region has meant that, despite the long-running wars of Afghanistan since the late 1970s, the region has remained virtually untouched by conflict, and many locals, mostly composed of ethnic Pamir and Kyrgyz, are not aware of the wars in the country. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan asked the People's Republic of China on several occasions to open the border in the Wakhan Corridor for economic reasons or as an alternative supply route for fighting the Taliban insurgency. The Chinese resisted, largely due to unrest in its far western province of Xinjiang, which borders the corridor. , it was reported that the United States had asked China to open the corridor. In July 2021, the area came under the Taliban control for the first time during the group's summer offensive. It was reported that hundreds of ethnic Kyrgyz nomads along with their livestock attempted to flee north into Tajikistan. The corridor is patrolled by forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which took over responsibility from the previous NATO-trained Afghan National Security Forces. As of June 2023, there had been discussions between the foreign ministers of China and Afghanistan concerning the opening of the strategically significant corridor to enhance the trade ties between Beijing and Kabul. Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi both met on the sidelines in Tibet during the third Trans-Himalaya Forum for International Cooperation, to discuss the possibilities of improving trade ties. Though the Taliban government finished a 50-km road through the corridor to reach the Chinese border, Beijing seems disinclined to open the border, due to security concerns. By 2025, China had also constructed a high, green fence along the border. ==See also==