Today.Az » World news » Iran's FM forecasts "drug tsunami" for region next year
26 April 2013 [14:50] - Today.Az
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said that next year, the
region will experience even more problems with drugs, and it will
eventually be hit with a "drug tsunami", IRNA reported.
Salehi made the remarks at the meeting of senior officials in the
framework of the Ministerial Conference of the Istanbul Process on
Afghanistan, which started its work today in Kazakhstan.
The key objective of the meeting is to agree on the text of the Almaty
Declaration and other documents of the main ministerial-level meeting
scheduled for April 26, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Kazakhstan.
Speaking of Afghanistan, Salehi said that next year the land in
Afghanistan that is used for growing drugs, will increase by 3 times.
Further speaking, Iran's FM noted that the region suffers from low level
of education, lack of financial resources, and weak economic
structures.
"These are the common problems for regional countries, that negatively affect all of them," Salehi said.
He noted that for solving these problems, foreign forces must exit the
region, as regional countries should deal with their problems on their
own.
"The result of foreign intervention in the region has led to increase of drug trafficking in the first place," Salehi noted.
Salehi expressed hope that Afghanistan, and other Asian countries would
pay more attention to regional cooperation, and increase it, so that the
overal security in the region would improve.
Iran has intensified its fight against drug trafficking as the Islamic
Republic's geographical position has made it a favorite transit corridor
for drug traffickers who intend to smuggle their cargoes from
Afghanistan to drug dealers in Europe.
Each year, the government of Iran spends hundreds of millions of dollars
erecting barriers along the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan and
pumping resources into checkpoints. Officials said the battle against
drug addiction and trafficking costs Iran $1 billion a year.
/Trend/
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