US State Department: "Occupied Azerbaijani territories are used for drug traffic"

The document said that narcotics are also widely used by Azerbaijani citizens. Although the official number of drug addicts is 18,000, the figure is actually between 200,000 and 300,000. Cases of the use of narcotic substances among women are increasing.

Azerbaijan is located at the crossroads of the routes leading from Afghanistan to Western Europe, and its area was chosen by drug traffickers after the Balkan route ceased to exist and the war in ex-Yugoslavia countries, the report said.

The U.S. government also quoted sources from the Azerbaijani government as saying that most of the narcotics in question are grown in Afghanistan and transported through Azerbaijan by several routes. These include ones passing via neighboring Iran and Georgia, and Azerbaijan's occupied regions, including Nagorno Karabakh.

Washington praised the activity of the Interior Ministry, saying that 1,660 facts relating to drugs were detected in 2005. In seven months of the year alone, Azeri law enforcers managed to impound 205 kilograms of narcotic substances as well as over 15 tons on the border. Although drug traffickers were trying to use the Caspian and Black Sea regions as transit territory, such illegal activity was successfully presented, the report said.