The geopolitics of Wakhan

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There has recently been a lot of careless talk on social media about Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor – also called Dalan-e-Wakhan in Dari, or De Wakhan Dehleez in Pashto – in the Pamir Mountains. Geographically this thin slice of land in the Badakhshan province (Afghanistan) is about 350 km long and 16 to 64 km wide. Wakhan or Vakhan connects Afghanistan eastward to Xinjiang (China), where its eastern end, in two prongs wraps around a salient of Chinese territory. It forms Afghanistan's 92 km boundary with China's Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The Corridor also delineates Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in the north from Pakistan's KP and GB to the south. Panj (the Vakhan) and Pamir Rivers, rise from this high-altitude plateau (over 16,000 feet). Both Rivers later become the famous Amu Darya (Oxus River), one of the four legendary rivers of Paradise in the Islamic folklore. From the Afghan city of Ishkashim, area for about 350 km is a nameless wilderness.

Sher Khan Bandar on Panj River is the famous trade crossing among some six road and ferry crossings between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and a source of steady revenue for Kabul.

The Broghil, one of the high mountain passes, connects the Corridor to KP, while Irshad Pass links it to GB. The other Dilisang Pass that connected GB is now disused. The Wakhjir Pass connects Wakhan District to China being the only border crossing. This route is one of the centuries-old trade highways, the 'Silk Route' between Central, South and East Asia, and beyond.

The Afghan Durrani Empire took Wakhan from Czarist Russia in 1763. Greater Badakhshan, straddling Afghanistan and Tajikistan, remained a contentious territory between Afghanistan and Russia, and while delineating Durand Line in 1893, the British gave Wakhan to Afghanistan, creating a buffer between Russia's Turkestan and the British India. In 2011, Tajikistan ceded 1,000 km2 territory to China in Pamirs, settling a 130-year-old border dispute.

As per 2021 Census estimates, over 17,000 semi-nomadic Wakhi, Pamiri and Kyrgyz people, mainly following the Ismaili sect, populate Afghanistan's Wakhan Oluswali (district). The Corridor has been closed to regular traffic and a rough road, built in the 1960s, connects Afghanistan's Ishkashim to Sarhad-e Broghil. Faizabad, Badakhshan is the nearest airport. Paucity of roads, when combined with the harsh weather, makes large-scale movement, settlement and sustenance difficult, if not impossible. The remoteness of the area has left it unaffected by wars in Afghanistan except for some interest by smugglers, taking drugs into Tajikistan and China, and possible route for Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the Chinese terrorist group based in ex-FATA and Afghanistan.

Despite Kabul's interest and completion of a 50 km road recently through the Corridor, China has resisted opening the Corridor for regular trade and traffic. In June 2023, IEA Foreign Minister Muttaqi raised the issue with Chinese FM Wang Yi during a meeting of 3rd 'Trans-Himalaya Forum for International Cooperation' in Tibet.

In 1929, the Soviet Union created the 'Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic' (Tajik SSR) on the Tajikistan side of the Corridor for Pamiris, whom the Soviet orientalists call the 'Mountain Tajiks'. The USSR developed Gorno Badakhshan borderland through access to higher education and projects like the Pamir Highway (1935). After the Soviet collapse, during Tajikistan's Civil War in 1992, Gorno-Badakhshan declared independence from Tajikistan under the political movement La'al-e Badakhshan.

However, later 'regionalism' as fundamental driver behind the independence movement was overtaken by 'religious/Ismaili' identity. Gorno-Badakhshan later rescinded its calls for independence, as Agha Khan's AKDN supplied Gorno-Badakhshan (from Kyrgyzstan) during the civil war, to prevent starvation. Through AKDN's ability versus Tajik state's inability to deliver, the Tajik people of greater Badakhshan region now consider themselves as 'Pamiri'.

The reported presence of IS in Tajikistan and Tajikistan's weariness with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan make any large-scale trade and commerce between Dushanbe and Kabul through the Corridor unlikely, especially when both sides have other venues available, as cited.

From the above factual situation about the greater Pamirs, the range delineating Tajikistan, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Wakhan land slice, following conclusions can be drawn.

First, through historic records and contemporary understanding, Wakhan firmly belongs to Afghanistan. However, Tajik-Pamiri-Ismaili identity makes it challenging for Sunni Pashtun dominated IEA.

Second, in its present configuration, Wakhan acts as a buffer between China and a 'settling' Afghanistan. China would want to retain the status quo to avoid Afghan Taliban influence, or ETIM-generated unrest in its Xinjiang Province. The same argument is applicable to Tajikistan and, by extension, Russia, as the Corridor shields Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan and the greater Pamirs from the IEA influence, that can undermine Russia's soft underbelly.

Third, from Pakistan's standpoint, any incursions or annexation (hypothetically) goes against the regional status quo and would need consensus with China, Russia and Tajikistan. Although theoretically these regional powers 'may' like Pakistan-engendered stability in the Wakhan Corridor and, by extension, in the Pamirs, solidifying this existing buffer against Afghan Taliban and IS-K, such an adventure would have severe bilateral repercussions with Afghanistan. The gambit outweighs its 'perceived' benefits of trade openings to Central Asia, bypassing an unfriendly Afghanistan, or any strategic leverage over IEA. Because such linkage requires massive all-weather communication infrastructure. The much-hyped Central Asian trade potential, except oil and gas where Kabul is a beneficiary stakeholder, needs serious study by Islamabad.

Moreover, it requires sizeable military presence under very inhospitable terrain and weather conditions year-round. One Siachen is enough. And alongside logistic unsustainability, it opens another front in Pakistan's fight against militancy and terrorism, additional to its Western borders. And global consensus is never conducive to forcible territorial acquisitions under the UN Charter and international law. Big powers only can get away with such adventurism, like Russia in Ukraine, not an aid and consensus-dependent Pakistan.

So, all the rumours about Wakhan need to be rubbished by ISPR. Research indicates that these social media posts were India-generated, aiming to further poison Pakistan's comparatively tense relations with Afghanistan. The unschooled and geo-strategically less savvy IEA brethren were quick at public denunciations, venting out their frustrations.

In statecraft, it is always a good idea to conduct quiet diplomacy and loud clarifications than filibustering in social media!