Afghanistan’s Neighbors Appeal For Support To Stop Drug Traffic
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SYDNEY, Australia — Tajikistan and Uzbekistan appealed for international support to help them fight drug trafficking from Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opium poppies, used to make heroin.
“An up-to-date, efficient, and capable Afghan border service” is needed to combat drug traffickers, Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov of Tajikistan told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, according to the U.N.’s Web site.
Drug production is one of the most dangerous problems facing Afghanistan and poses a threat to regional security, Uzbekistan’s foreign minister, Vladimir Norov, told the assembly.
Afghanistan’s opium cultivation increased by 59% this year compared with 2005, the U.N.Office on Drugs and Crime said earlier this month. The money generated from drugs is helping fund the insurgency being mounted by the Taliban in the South and East of the country, the American-led coalition and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have said.
An Afghan-Tajik border force could serve as a basis for “establishing the first section of the security belt around Afghanistan,” Mr. Nazarov said.
Afghanistan’s neighbors in Central Asia should play a greater role in the fight against drugs and assisting Afghanistan’s reconstruction since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, he said.
The amount of drugs seized on the Tajik-Afghan border in the first three months of this year increased by 27%, Mr. Nazarov said in July during a visit by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Afghanistan shares a 750-mile border with Tajikistan and a 85-mile frontier with Uzbekistan. America is providing training and equipment to Tajik forces on the border with Afghanistan, Mr. Rumsfeld said during his visit.Tajikistan allows American military aircraft involved in operations in Afghanistan to use its airspace and to refuel.
A record 407,700 acres of land were under opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2006, the U.N. said in its report earlier this month. In the southern province of Helmand, a center for Taliban operations, cultivation rose 162%.
Afghanistan’s poppy crop reached more than 6,000 tons this year, accounting for 92% of the world supply, it said.
