KABUL, September 5 (Itar-Tass) — Russia offers concrete five-year steps to fight drug production in Afghanistan, the head of the federal drugs control service, Viktor Ivanov, told a regional anti-drug conference that opened in Kabul on Monday.
“The conference should become the follow-up of decisions taken by the four countries’ presidents and bring us concrete results,” he said. “By taking any decisions we should proceed from the assumption that the problem of the Afghan drug production at its root is beyond Afghanistan and is created by orders from global transnational drug trafficking corporations.”
Ivanov called on delegates “to discuss and take a decision on Russia’s initiated plan for the elimination of Afghan drug production codenamed Raduga-2 [Rainbow].”
“Russia believes that to implement this plan it is necessary to create a relevant management body or agency that will in close cooperation with the Afghan government, regional governments, the UN, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization and other leading organizations of the world in practice set up a stable system of the Eurasian anti-drug security,” he said.
“Central offices of the agency could be placed in three large cities of Afghanistan,” he said.
Ivanov called on his counterparts to initiate a public statement through diplomatic channels on behalf of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan to the EU authorities on the need to speed up the adoption of a five-year Russian-European plan for the elimination of drug production.
Moreover, the Russian delegation considers it expedient to develop by the next quartet meeting a draft roadmap that would contain proposals for the implementation of four-party and multilateral programs.
“Relying on the potential of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization it is necessary to draft an anti-drug strategy of the Eastern Hemisphere similar to the one that is being implemented in the Western Hemisphere,” Ivanov said.