TEHRAN – The secretary general of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters announced on Tuesday that his country is ready to help replace poppy cultivation in neighboring Afghanistan.

Eskandar Momeni made remakes in a meeting with Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Hashim Aurtaq on the sidelines of the annual United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna.

Iran has always stressed the need for global support to Afghanistan’s development projects to pursue its alternative cultivation plans, Momeni said.  

Iran, which has a 900-kilometer border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins across the world, especially Europe.

Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past decades.

Iran has spent more than $700 million on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.

The war on drug has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police forces over the past four decades.

MJ/PA