Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to form anti-drug agency

Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli says Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are to establish a joint center to organize operations against drug trafficking.

At a Tuesday meeting with Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme Helen Clark, Rahmani-Fazli called on the global community to assume a responsible role vis-à-vis the scourge of drug.

The Iranian interior minister pointed to the heavy financial and human losses that Iran has incurred in countering drug trafficking and noted, “Unfortunately the global community has provided very trivial assistance in this respect.”

He expressed Iran’s preparedness to help Afghanistan to replace cultivation of narcotics with other agricultural products, and urged the international community to save the Afghan nation from this scourge.

Clark, for her part, praised Iran’s cooperation with the UN in countering narcotics and called on the international community to appreciate Iran for its commitment to combating drugs and the heavy losses inflicted on the country.

The UN reports indicate that narcotics production and drug smuggling have increased in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

Iran, which has a 900-kilometer common border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to kingpins in Europe.

Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug trafficking over the past three decades.