INCB Official Praises Iranian Efforts to Fight Drug Trafficking
Iran's role in combating drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe "is quite positive" said Robert Lousberg, a member of the board, in a press conference in Brussels.
"We are happy about the cooperation that we obtain from Iran," he said, noting that many countries are so large and have long borders and hence face many difficulties in fighting drug trafficking.
Lousberg was speaking to the press ahead of the launching of the INCB annual 2002 report. (The report is embargoed until today.) The INCB is the independent and quasi-judicial control organ for the implementation of the United Nations drug conventions, established in 1968 by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961.
The board is independent of governments as well as of the United Nations; its 13 members serve in their personal capacity.
They are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and their work is financed by the United Nations.
Three members are elected from a list of candidates nominated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and 10 from a list nominated by governments.
According to another report, dispatched to IRNA, Head of Iran Anti-Narcotics Headquarters Ali Hashemi said here Monday that drug trade poses a threat to the world. In a meeting with visiting Azerbaijan's Justice Minister Lieutenant General Fekran Mohammadov, he referred to the membership of Iran and Azerbaijan in the UN Secondary Anti-drug Commission, adding, "Contact between the two nations is an effective way to forge closer bilateral ties."
On the issue of drug cultivation in Afghanistan, he said the western countries, after they had established their presence in the war-torn country should have also dealt with the drug menace as they did with terrorism.
"Unfortunately, today we are effectively confronted with over 30 percent rise in the illicit drug cultivation in Afghanistan," Hashemi said.
He said if the world does not seriously address anti-drug trafficking measures, 'then, in addition to Iran, regional states and European countries will also bear the brunt of the damages.' He called for exchange of information and expansion of cooperation in anti-drug campaign. He also welcomed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on drug campaign as beneficial for both nations.
The Azeri official also referred to the cultivation of narcotics in Karabakh region and conveyed his countries interest in expansion of anti-drug cooperation with Iran.
"Iran is collaborating with other regional countries to beef up the campaign against the drug trade. For example Iran and Pakistan anti-drug organs are working closely to fight the resurgent menace of drug smuggling from Afghanistan," said a senior Pakistani official in Islamabad last week.
In an interview with IRNA here, the Director-General of Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Major General Zafar Abbas, said that excellent cooperation existed between Iranian and Pakistani anti-drug bodies in the fight against drug smuggling.
He said that Afghanistan, a landlocked country, finds exit routes for its drugs in Iran, Pakistan and other neighboring countries on their way to Europe and other countries.
"With Afghanistan again becoming a center of poppy cultivation, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan will have to work hard jointly to face this horrible challenge," Abbas maintained.
The ANF chief said that Pakistan shared over 2100 kilometers of common borders with Afghanistan, 900 kilometers with Iran and also has a 1,000-km-long coastal area. Drug pushers have always found it easy to send drugs to Iran and on wards via Pakistan, the official added.
Pakistan and Iran, Abbas said, are transit routes in the sense that drugs come out of Afghanistan through these two countries on their way to lucrative markets elsewhere, but, also causing both countries to have a sizable number of drug addicts.
He talked about the tremendous cooperation between the ANF in Islamabad and the Drug Control Headquarters in Tehran.
Under a UNDCP project the bodies are coordinating their efforts to tackle the drug issue in a more effective way, he said.