DUSHANBE, April 27, 2010, Asia-Plus – The governments of Tajikistan ad China have reached an agreement on organization of the year-round operation of the Kulma crossing on the Tajik-Chinese border in the Murgab district, Gorno Badakhshan, Minister of Transport and Communications Olim Boboyev remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe today.
According to him, a final decision on this issue will be made in late May this year, when transport ministers from China, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Iran will gather in Dushanbe for meeting to discuss issues related to expansion of the transportation cooperation.
“It is necessary to do a lot to provide the year-round operation of the road Dushanbe-Khorog-Murgab-Kulma-Karakoram Highway but we are ready for that,” the minister said, noting that the road will reduce Tajikistan’s isolation from the neighboring markets.
We will recall that sine May 1, 2008, the crossing has worked every day, except weekends, from May though November.
The Tajik-China trade route, opened in 2004, runs from Khorog, the capital of Gorno Badakhshan in southeastern Tajikistan, over a high-altitude plateau and then down into China, where it ends in the city of Kashgar, 700 kilometers away.
As conditions are so tough at the Kulma border crossing, which is located on a mountain pass 4,400 meters high, until May 1 2008, the gateway had stayed open only 15 days out of every month, while from November through April it had been closed altogether.
