'U.N. Hails Iran For Curbing Flow Of Afghan Heroin', Reuters India, 20 May 2009
EXCERPT: "The head of the U.N. crime agency praised Iran during a visit on Wednesday for curbing the flow of smuggled heroin from Afghanistan and helping keep the drug off Western streets. Iran, which shares a 900-km (560-mile) border with Afghanistan, is a conduit for smuggling drugs to the West from its insurgency-ridden neighbour. Up to 2 million people are estimated to use narcotics among Iran's population of 70 million. More than 3,700 Iranian security personnel have been killed fighting drug smugglers since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and Costa said Iranian anti-drugs police were among the world's best. Iran said last month that, in the year to March 20, it had seized about one-third of the estimated 3,000 tonnes of drugs smuggled into the Islamic Republic from Afghanistan. At a U.N. meeting in The Hague in March, Iran offered to help Afghanistan in combating drugs, in a gesture to a U.S. call for regional support in Afghanistan that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described as promising."
To continue reading the article, click here.
See also:
'Iran "holding back a flood of heroin" from Afghanistan, UN drug official says', UN News Centre, 20 May 2009
'Bitter harvest for lost Afghan youth', Irish Times, 20 May 2009
'Lack of security main obstacle to stop opium growing in Afghanistan, says INCB', International Narcotics Control Board, Press Release Number 5, 19 February 2009 [pdf]
Related posts:
'1 billion dollar drugs seized over the year', 2 April 2009
'Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran collaborate in drug crackdown', 11 March 2009
'2008 opium crop was second biggest: UN report', 20 February 2009
'Failed Afghan drug policy harming us: Iran', 11 September 2008
'Smuggling heroin out of Afghanistan', 20 June 2008
