GILGIT, April 20: A member of the Northern Areas Legislative Council has urged President Pervez Musharraf to restore trade with Tajikistan by opening up the Ghizer route. Pir Karam Shah of the PPP, a former deputy chief executive of the NALC, argued that the vast opportunities for economic development should be tapped through border trade with other central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzystan as well as with Afghanistan, which would also constitute a part of the route.

Mr Shah, a legislator from the Ishkomen Valley of the Ghizer district, said that the "centuries-old pony track" had remained a principal trade route for transportation and barter trade between the remote Ghizer district and the Central Asian States until they were annexed by the then USSR in 1917, adding that "before the arrival of the British Raj in Gilgit in 1893, the Iskhomen area was a hub for trade and tourism, but the route was abandoned on the directives of the then Communist regime in Tajkistan.

"Now as these states reclaimed their independence we are very much eager to restore the lost economic and cultural links with these brotherly states," Mr Shah stated in a letter addressed to President Musharraf.

The legislator said that the restoration and upgrading of the unpaved route into a highway would "usher in a new era of prosperity in the landlocked Ghizer district" besides improving the overall economic condition of the Northern Areas and Chitral.

However, an official said that although the road span between Ghizer and Tajkistan was relatively shorter but a portion of the road needed to go through the Wakhan Corridor, which was controlled by Afghanistan for which negotiation with the government in Kabul were yet to be concluded.