Opinion | Tajikistan’s Dependence on Iran and Afghanistan — Gwadar Offers No Immediate Relief

Pakistan’s transit proposal to Tajikistan is partly framed as a solution to a genuine problem. Tajikistan is landlocked and currently depends on Iran and Afghanistan for transit access, a dependency that comes with higher costs, longer times, and the political and security volatility of two corridors that Dushanbe cannot control. Pakistan positions Gwadar as an alternative that reduces this exposure. The overland route from Gwadar to Tajikistan passes through Afghanistan. The proposal does not remove Tajikistan’s Afghan transit dependency. It reroutes it through a different port while leaving the Afghan corridor intact as the path between the coast and Dushanbe.

*The Geography Pakistan’s Proposal Cannot Change*

Tajikistan is separated from the Arabian Sea by Pakistan and Afghanistan. Any route from Gwadar to Dushanbe must traverse Pakistani territory and then Afghan territory before entering Tajikistan or one of the Central Asian states that border it. That geographic reality is fixed. Pakistan’s transit proposal cannot offer Tajikistan a route to the sea that does not pass through Afghanistan, because there is no such route from Gwadar. The proposal’s value, if it has any, rests on whether Pakistani-controlled infrastructure from Gwadar to the Afghan border is better than Iranian-controlled infrastructure from Chahbahar, and whether the Afghan corridor under Taliban governance is a corridor Tajikistan should build its trade strategy around.

*Substituting One Afghan Leg for Another*

Tajikistan currently transits Afghanistan under arrangements that are costly, unpredictable, and tied to a political relationship between Dushanbe and Kabul that operates under its own pressures. Pakistan’s proposal asks Tajikistan to use Afghanistan’s territory again, but to enter Afghanistan from the south through Torkham or Chaman rather than from the west through Iranian border crossings. The risks of the Afghan corridor, which include Taliban border management, arbitrary duties, road quality, and security conditions, are present on both routes. What changes under the Gwadar proposal is the port at the origin, not the nature of the Afghan section of the journey.

*Chahbahar’s Route Does Not Pass Through Afghanistan*

The corridor Iran is offering Tajikistan through Chahbahar runs from the port through Iranian territory and connects to the road and rail networks that link Iran to Turkmenistan and onward to Tajikistan. It does not enter Afghan territory. The Ashgabat Agreement and the International North-South Transport Corridor provide the legal and logistical framework for this routing, and Iran has developed its northern road and rail infrastructure specifically to support Central Asian transit.

Iran and Tajikistan have now signed a Cooperation Implementation Program for cargo transit through Chahbahar and a railway transit MoU, formally anchoring this Afghanistan-free corridor in signed agreements and moving it toward operationalisation. For Tajikistan, a route that removes Afghanistan from the transit equation is categorically different from a route that reroutes through it. That distinction is not merely an argument being made across a negotiating table. It is now the basis of a signed framework.

*The Core Vulnerability Stays*

Pakistan’s proposal to Tajikistan asks Dushanbe to accept a transit arrangement that preserves the exact vulnerability the proposal claims to solve. If the Afghan corridor is disrupted by a Taliban border closure, a political dispute between Islamabad and Kabul, or a security incident at Torkham or Chaman, Tajikistan’s supply chain through Gwadar is broken at the same point it would be broken today. The port at the southern end is different.

The exposure at the northern end is identical. Chahbahar, connected through Iran under treaty-backed protocols, eliminates that exposure. For Tajikistan, that is not a marginal preference. It is the reason the framework with Tehran exists at all.

Author : Hailing from Kashmir and based in New Delhi, Mehak Farooq is a journalist specialising in defence and strategic affairs. Her work spans security, geopolitics, veterans’ welfare, foreign policy, and the evolving challenges of national and regional stability.

She can be reached at mehakfarooq266@gmail.com