Taliban Says Wakhan Road to China Nears Completion

The Taliban administration has said that work on most of the Wakhan road, linking Afghanistan to China, has been completed and that only the construction of two bridges on the Afghan side remains.

Mullah Abdul Latif Mansoor, acting minister of industry and development in the Taliban administration, said China is interested in connecting to Afghanistan through the Wakhan route and has built the road up to the Afghan border. He added that most of the road work on the Afghan side has also been completed.

According to the Taliban official, the two remaining bridges will also be finished soon, and the project is likely to be put into operation sometime this year. He did not provide details on the exact timetable or the cost of this part of the project.

The Wakhan corridor is a narrow strip in northeastern Afghanistan that connects Badakhshan province to the Chinese border and has for years been considered one of the potential transit and trade routes.