Afghanistan–Tajikistan border

A buffer between empires

In the 19th century Britain wanted Afghanistan as a buffer against Russian and Persian expansion, while Russia, moving south, conquered the khanates of Khiva and Bukhara and reached the upper Amu Darya. In 1873 the two powers agreed that the Amu Darya was Afghanistan’s northern boundary, and that eastern Badakhshan and the Wakhan Corridor as far as Lake Sari-Qul were Afghan.^[1]

A third agreement, in 1895, carried the line east of Lake Sari-Qul to China. An Anglo-Russian commission that year marked the 218 km along the Wakhan’s mountain crests with 12 pillars.^[1] The Wakhan is Afghanistan’s panhandle, stretching east to the Chinese border.^[1]

“The Afghanistan - U.S.S.R. boundary has been demarcated along its entire length and there should be no major disputes concerning its position.”^[1]

Rivers and islands

A 1946 agreement between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union put the boundary along the main channel of the Amu Darya and the Panj as far as the head of navigation, and along the middle of the rivers above it, and left the islands to a mixed commission. In 1947–48 that commission reportedly allocated some 1,192 islands. Further treaties followed in 1958 and on 16 June 1981, when the section from Lake Zorkul to the Chinese tripoint was declared demarcated.^[1]

Lake Sari-Qul drains through the Pamir River, which is joined by the Wakhan River to form the Panj. For nearly 650 km the Panj flows through the mountains, in places through chasm-like gorges where a trail can follow the riverbed only at low water, before it reaches the plains near Bagarak.^[1] The border area is thinly populated; Khorog is the main town on the northern bank, while the Afghan side had only villages along the river.^[1]

A bridge at Nizhny Pyanj

For years trade across the river depended on a ferry between Nizhny Pyanj in Tajikistan and Shir Khan Bandar in Afghanistan. It carried about 50 trucks a day and stopped for months each year because of hazardous currents.^[2]

A 678-metre bridge, costing $37 million and mostly paid for by the United States, was built alongside it and was due to open on 26 August 2007. Tajik and Afghan officials said it would let as many as 1,000 trucks a day cross.^[2]