During the November 2015 visit of Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon to Pakistan, the Tajik premier also expressed his government's desire to join the Quadrilateral Agreement on Traffic in Transit to use CPEC and Gwadar Port as a conduit for imports and exports to Tajikistan by circumventing Afghanistan. The request received political backing by the Pakistani Prime Minister. The Pamir Highway in Central Asia already provides Tajikistan access to Kashgar via the Kulma Pass. These crossings complement the CPEC project to provide Central Asian states access to Pakistan's seaports in Gwadar and Karachi by completely bypassing Afghanistan – a country which has been ravaged by civil war and political instability since the late 1970s.