Gangtok, April 30: The annual reopening of Nathu-la for cross-border trade between India and China has been postponed following a landslide in the Yadong area of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). The pass was to be declared open tomorrow.

The Union commerce ministry, in a last-minute communiqué to the Sikkim government this evening, said trade had been called off till further notice.

Ujwal Gurung, the director of the state commerce and industries department, said the new date for reopening was tentatively set on May 19. He added that the inaugural ceremony planned at Nathu-la tomorrow to welcome traders from TAR was also cancelled.

Officials said the landslide took place in between Renquinngang and the Donquinngang trade marts in the TAR. Traders in Sikkim said the landslide did not affect the movement of people and goods from Donquinngang to Sherathang on this side of the border. “However, TAR traders might find it difficult to arrive at Donquinngang,” they said.

“Business will definitely be affected because of the ongoing crisis in Tibet and there will be heavy security checks on both sides,” a Sikkim trader said. “It is doubtful if any trader on the TAR side will be coming to the Nathu-la pass tomorrow as many of them I spoke to talked about the problems triggered by landslide,” another trader said.

Although the postponement has been attributed to a natural calamity, traders here feel that the current turmoil in the TAR and the Chinese bid to take the Olympic flame to the Everest may also have contributed to the cancellation.

Last month, Tibetans from Darjeeling district and North-eastern states, including Sikkim, had protested at Rabgpo demanding passage to Nathu-la for entering the TAR. They pulled out after the Dalai Lama sent them instructions through his emissary.

Sikkim has a sizeable Tibetan population and some of the traders using the Nathu-la pass are from the community.

Trade through Nathu-la was reopened on July 6, 2006 after a gap of 44 years. The pass had been closed since the Chinese aggression in 1962. Each year, trading is done from May 1 to November 30.