Iran to set up joint center with neighbors to fight drug trafficking
By Sara Rajabova
Iran plans to form a joint center with neighboring countries to combat drug trafficking.
Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Iranian Interior minister, says that Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran would establish a joint center to organize operations against drug trafficking, Press TV reported.
During a meeting with administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Helen Clark on October 22, Rahmani Fazli called on the global community to take immediate action about damages eventuated from drug trafficking.
Rahmani Fazli pointed to the heavy financial and human losses that Iran has incurred to oppress drug trafficking. He said that unfortunately the global community has provided very trivial assistance in this respect.
Fazli expressed Iran's preparedness to help Afghanistan to replace cultivation of narcotics with other agricultural products, and urged international communities to save Afghans from this hugely deleterious scourge of drugs.
According to Iranian media each year, Iran allocates $50 million to the Afghan government for the fight against drugs.
Iran lies on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe as well as the Persian Gulf states. It shares about 900 kilometers of a common border with Afghanistan, through which about 74 percent of opium is reportedly smuggled.
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.
The forces led by U.S and NATO intervened in Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington's war on terror. The allied forces removed the Taliban from power, but the country still grapples with spiralingly high insecurity.
Despite high economic and human costs, Iran has been actively fighting drug trafficking over the past three decades.
Iran's location has made the country a favorite transit corridor for drug traffickers seeking to smuggle their cargo from Afghanistan to drug dealers in Europe.
Iran, a close neighbor of Afghanistan, has called for a regional solution to this corrupted crisis in the region and blamed the growing insecurity and drug trafficking in Afghanistan because of the presence foreign military presence in the country.