War on drugs needs joint global strategy: Ghani

KABUL (Pajhwok): President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has said combating the menace of narcotics needed a joint international strategy.

A statement from the Presidential Palace said Ahmadzai talking to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Yury Fedotov, who called on him at his office on Saturday evening.

At the meeting, Fedotov briefed the president in detail about UNODC’s efforts at combating narcotics in Afghanistan.

Fedotov said he backed the new government in Kabul and hoped the international community would support it in line with Afghanistan’s development agenda.

For his part, Ghani said narcotics threatened to destroy and weaken the Afghan society and damage Afghanistan’s image internationally.

“The problem of narcotics is not only destroying Afghanistan, it is a regional and international issue that needs joint international effort to combat it,” he said.

The president stressed the war on drugs needed a combined international strategy to reduce their production, trafficking and usage in the world.

He suggested one way to fight narcotics in Afghanistan was to familiarise Afghan farmers with modern agriculture affairs, asking the UN to cooperate with Afghan farmers in this regard.

Fedotov told Ahmadzai that UN’s secretary general Ban Ki-moon had the plan to visit Afghanistan in future.

The president welcomed Ban’s decision to visit Afghanistan and said the Afghan government was looking forward to greeting him.

mds/ma

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