Karzai offers cooperation in combating drugs

KABUL): President Hamid Karzai, calling cultivation, production and smuggling of drugs a big tragedy, said on Monday his government was ready for all kinds of cooperation with regional countries to combat the courage.

Karzai met with counternarcotics ministers from Pakistan and Iran at the Presidential Palace, a statement from his office said. He stressed the need for joint cooperation among the neighbouring countries in their anti-drug campaigns.

“Some foreign elements are involved in poppy cultivation and drug smuggling in Afghanistan” the president said, calling for joint efforts of neighbouring countries and the international community to fight drug smuggling.

Afghan Counternarcotics Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbil and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) Executive Director Yuri Fedotov were also present on the occasion.

Fedotov said 16 joint anti-drug operations had so far been conducted.

Iran’s Interior Minister Mustafa Mohammad Najjar, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Counternarcotics Haji Khudabakhsh, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) Executive Director Yuri Fedotov and Afghan Counternarcotics Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbil attended the fifth trilateral meeting in Kabul.

The sixth meeting is due in Iran in November, 2012.

Counternarcotics ministers from the three countries agreed to step up efforts at preventing drug smuggling from Afghanistan, which produces about 90 percent of the world‘s opium.

mm/ma

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