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| Iranian interior minister attends anti-drugs conference in Vienna |
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.jpg) TEHRAN – Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar has visited Vienna to attend the fifty-sixth session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) that kicked off on Monday and ends on Friday.
More than 1,000 representatives from across the globe are attending the meetings to discuss issues ranging from international cooperation in combating drugs to public health and safety concerns, including the threat of new psychoactive substances.
The executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, has said this year's CND session "has a primary institutional role to play in defining the international drug control system of the 21st century."
Previously, Fedotov had called Iran a “leading country” in illicit drug seizures.
“Iran is our important partner in the war on drugs,” he had said during a meeting with Mohammad-Najjar in Tehran in July 2011. He also said Iran is a “good and reliable” partner for the international community as well.”
According to the latest data published by the UNODC, Iran seizes more than 87 percent of the seized drugs in the world.
With a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Afghanistan, the biggest producer of opium in the world, Iran has been used as the main conduit for smuggling illicit drugs from its neighbor to drug kingpins in Europe.
In response, the Iranian government has spent over $700 million to seal its borders and prevent the transit of illicit drugs destined for European, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian countries.
Despite the presence of U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan and their extensive public relations campaign about their efforts to eliminate the production and smuggling of drugs, 3,600 tons of opium was produced in Afghanistan in 2010, based on UN statistics and estimates.
MT/PA
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