DUSHANBE, April 30, 2014, Asia-Plus – China will temporarily close its common border with Tajikistan.

According to the Main Border Guard Directorate at the State Committee for National Security of Tajikistan (SCNS), China is temporarily closing its border with all neighboring countries in connection with celebration of Labor Day.

An official source at the Main Border Guard Directorate says the Kulma border-crossing checkpoint will be closed from May 1 to May 4.

According to the Ministry of Transport of Tajikistan (MoT), 4,363 trucks have proceeded via the Kulma crossing since the beginning of the year.

Opened in 2004, the Tajik-China trade route runs from Khorog, the capital of Gorno Badakhshan in southeastern Tajikistan, over a high-altitude plateau and then down into China, where it ends in the city of Kashgar, 700 kilometers away.

As conditions are so tough at the Kulma border crossing, which is located on a mountain pass 4,400 meters high, until May 1 2008, the gateway had stayed open only 15 days out of every month, while from November through April it had been closed altogether.

From May 2008 to December 2011, the Kulma crossing operated every day, except weekends, from May through November.

In December 2011, Tajikistan and China reached an agreement on a year-round operation of the Kulma border-crossing checkpoint in December 2011.  Under the agreement signed in Dushanbe on December 29, 2011, a status of international crossing was given to the Kulma border-crossing checkpoint.