President Emomali Rahmon has issued a directive to declassify materials on the Ikar gold-tungsten deposit in the Rushan district of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, according to the official website of the President of Tajikistan.
The decision aims to attract foreign investment and introduce new technologies for the development of the deposit, the document states.
Information on Ikar’s mineral reserves is stored in the archives of Tajikistan's Main Department of Geology. According to the agency, the deposit, discovered by Soviet researchers in 1971, is located at an altitude of 2.6–3.2 km and is a complex site containing not only tungsten and gold but also uranium and cobalt.
Skeptics note: **"Kazakhstan recently took a similar step, declassifying its geological maps at the end of 2024 to digitize them with the help of British specialists.
Kazakh experts warn that this may not end well for the country... What will happen to the ecologically fragile mountainous region of Badakhshan? Open-pit mining could cause irreversible damage."**
Experts report that Chinese, Japanese, and Korean investors are showing interest in the Ikar deposit, and several Western countries have already submitted proposals.
The news outlet AsiaToday previously reported that London has set its sights on Central Asia's rare-earth metal deposits. Journalists noted that rare-earth lobbying intensified in Kyrgyzstan in the fall of last year, followed by the emergence of “mysterious investors” in Kazakhstan.
CentralAsianLIGHT.org
January 7, 2025