The Aga Khan Foundation has over the years undertaken many rural development projects in the NA. Whatever little development has been there is mainly due to the Aga Khan Foundation. Even though the Islamic fundamentalist parties from time to time mounted a campaign against successive Aga Khans and their workers in the NA by projecting them as Western agents and anti-Islam, the government of Pakistan saw to it that there was no interference with the Foundation's work because of its excellent international image.
The only major development project taken up by the government was the construction of the Karakoram Highway with Chinese assistance to facilitate the overland movement to China of the exports from Punjab. The benefit of these exports largely went to the people of Punjab. It was completed in 1978.
The Karakoram Highway was also used for the movement to Pakistan of Chinese nuclear and military equipment such as the M-9 and M-11 missiles, equipment for the Chashma nuclear power station constructed by the Chinese etc. The two countries avoided transporting such sensitive equipment by sea to avoid detection by the US. Some of the missiles supplied by North Korea to Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto's secret visit to Pyongyang in 1993 also came by the overland route via China and then the Karakoram Highway. Some of the missiles for Iran from China and North Korea were also transported by the same route.
On March 9,1995, Pakistan, China, Kazakhstan and Kyrghystan signed at Islamabad a Transit Trade Agreement to facilitate trade between Pakistan and the Central Asian republics (CARs) via China. Under a separate agreement between Pakistan and China, it was decided to upgrade the Karakoram Highway to facilitate this trade with the CARs, with Pakistan meeting the expenditure on its side and China on its side. While work on the Pakistan side involving an investment of US $ 85 million started after the signing of the agreement, China dragged its feet on upgrading the Highway in its territory because of its concerns over the increasing use of the Highway by the Uighur extremist elements for getting arms, ammunition and explosives from Pakistan and by Pakistani narcotics smugglers for smuggling heroin to China.
Writing in the Herald (December,1995), the monthly journal of the Dawn group of publications, Ahmed Rashid, the well-known Pakistani expert on Afghanistan and the CARs, said: