Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan’s drug enforcement agency will send an appeal to the UN global drugs watchdog calling for changes to its recent report that Baku deems as biased, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Hasanov said Wednesday.

"Unfortunately, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in its report adhered to double standards on the issue concerning Azerbaijan and Armenia," Hasanov told a meeting of the State Commission on Fighting Drug Abuse and Illegal Circulation of Narcotics that he chairs. "The report notes that Armenia is enforcing three relevant UN conventions at a high level, while Azerbaijan is cited as a transit state [for drug trafficking]."

Hasanov said the report has no reference whatsoever to Armenia’s growing drugs in the occupied Azerbaijani territories and making hefty profits from drug sales.

"The State Commission will state its position on that report, terming its section on Azerbaijan and Armenia as biased, and insist that this part be amended," he said.

The INCB said in its annual report published earlier this month that the South Caucasus is "increasingly being used as a transit area for consignments of opiates from Afghanistan, and as a result, drug abuse is on the rise in the subregion", calling on the Azerbaijani government to step up combat against drug trafficking. The INCB said that given the long borders that countries of that subregion share with Iran, Russia and Turkey and their access to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, the board "remains concerned" that the situation with regard to drug trafficking and abuse in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia "may continue to deteriorate".

"To address the problem of drugs being smuggled through Azerbaijan, certain measures, in particular the strengthening of border control, have been taken. In spite of those measures, Azerbaijan continues to be used as a transit country for illicit drug consignments," the report claimed.

The amount of heroin seized in Azerbaijan increased by 63 per cent (from 144 kg to 235 kg) in 2010, the report said. It also noted that the total amount of opiates seized in Central Asia and Azerbaijan decreased by 27 per cent, from almost 6 tons in 2008 to 4.4 tons in 2009.

Presidential Administration department head Fuad Alasgarov also said Azerbaijan should express disagreement over the UN agency’s report and the document should indicate that Azerbaijan is not a transit state for drug smuggling. Some attempts are being made to use the country as a transit state but they are being successfully thwarted, he said.

"If narcotics are available in all countries today, it means that every country’s territory is being used for their transit. There are indeed attempts to use Azerbaijani territory for the purpose. For this reason, about 2.5 tons of narcotic substances are removed from circulation every year."

State Customs Committee official Guloglan Muradly said that in 2010 frontier guards impounded 235 kg of drugs from 130 people, including 95 citizens of Azerbaijan, 33 nationals of Iran, and one each from Georgia and Uzbekistan.

Ali Hasanov in turn said that tough combat against drugs has been declared in Azerbaijan, adding that his commission would issue a public appeal in this regard soon.

"The drug business involves officials, therefore, such problems should be assessed overall as drug-related corruption. Like the fight against corruption, combat against the spread of drugs should be significantly stepped up," Hasanov said.

He also said that the number of drug addicts in Azerbaijan should be calculated anew, as the current figure is inaccurate.

Over 25,000 people are registered as drug addicts in the country of 9 million.