Tajikistan agrees to give land to China

Tajikistan has agreed to give away a portion of its territory to neighbouring China in a bid to put an end to a land dispute dating back more than a century. Parliament voted Wednesday in favour of giving up around 1,000 square kilometers of land in the Central Asian nation's sparsely populated Pamir Mountains region. There was no immediate information on how many people live in the territory to be ceded.
Opposition leader Mukhiddin Kabiri said the land transfer is unconstitutional and represents a defeat for Tajik diplomacy. But Foreign Minister Khamrokon Zarifi portrayed it as a victory, saying China had initially claimed more than 11,000 square miles (28,000 square kilometers). The dispute dates to the 19th Century, when Tajikistan was part of Czarist Russia.