 During the Soviet period many Pamiris migrated to the Vakhsh River Valley and settled in Qurghonteppa Oblast, in what is today Khatlon Province.In the 1980s debate raged in Tajikistan about the official status of the Pamiri languages in the republic.After the independence of Tajikistan in 1991 Pamiri nationalism stirred and the Pamiri nationalist political party Lali Badakhshan took power in Gorno-Badakhshan.