For years, the Iraq-Iran border has served as the main conduit for smuggling of goods by porters whose job involves shouldering heavy and bulky loads on foot across remote mountains in order to provide for their families.
The practice has become a cause célèbre for criticism, prompting Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to intervene in 2016 after dozens of porters died during their grueling journeys.
The region is known for a treacherous terrain, where natural incidents such as snow storms and avalanches are common. Landmines left from the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s lurk, as do ravenous wolves.
The jagged peaks of the Zagros mountains are also favorable hiding grounds for Kurdish militants who engage in clashes with border guards from time to time and get porters caught in the occasional crossfire.
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Porters traverse a rocky route toward the Iranian border with bundles of goods.[/caption]Smuggling is a big business in the region and kolbars, as the local porters are called, are estimated to carry 3.6 billion worth of goods a year. However, a small fraction of this sum is absorbed in the region where unemployment is rampant.
Instead, smuggling rings based in Tehran and other major cities pocket most of the profits at the cost of the kolbars who are only paid negligible courier fees.
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A man in Iran's Sardasht makes a snowman in a gesture of sympathy with kolbars.[/caption]The problem elicited a harsh warning from Ayatollah Khamenei, urging authorities to fight smuggling with determination.
When I say smuggling, I dont mean a poor kolbar from Baluchistan who goes to the other side of the border and carries a thing on his back to this side I am talking about big coordinated smuggling [rings]; we need to fight them, we are the state, we have the power, the Leader said.
A series of measures taken by the government have sought to induce kolbars to give up the practice and engage in sustainable jobs. They have included extending social security coverage to some kolbars, but Kurdish parliamentarians complain those measures are not enough.
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Kolbars cross a river on their way to the Iranian border from Iraq.[/caption]Instead, they have been calling for free trade zones to be established in Kurdish border regions but security issues seem to have trumped the idea.
Expectations from President Hassan Rouhani are high in Kurdish-populated parts of Iran, where he received 75% of the vote in the May 19, 2017 elections.
On Tuesday, the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration announced that it had inaugurated the first retail market on the Siran Band-Baneh border with the aim of serving kolbars.
Under the plan, kolbars will receive electronic cards providing them monthly duty discounts on 5 million rials worth of purchases at the market.
With the implementation of this plan, it is expected that the proceeds from local marketing will directly benefit the border residents, which will have a significant role in improving the livelihoods of dear Kurdistan border residents, the customs administration said in a statement.
