- Drug trafficking is Islamic State resource base — Drug Control Service head
- Russia, Pakistan to take joint efforts to counter Afghan drug threat — Ivanov
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DUSHANBE, May 26. /TASS/. Russia will provide assistance worth $5.5 million to Tajikistan within three years for fighting drug trafficking within the framework of an interdepartmental agreement signed on Tuesday between the Russian Federal Drug Control Service of Russia (FSKN) and Tajikistani Drug Control Agency, FSKN Director Viktor Ivanov said. He attended a meeting of the Coordinating Council of the heads of competent authorities on fighting drug trafficking of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) member states in Dushanbe.
"These funds will be spent on equipping the Agency with modern facilities, personnel training, other essential needs of the important anti-drug agency, which is at the forefront of the fight against drugs," Ivanov said. According to him, "Tajikistan has the longest border with Afghanistan (more than 1,340 km), which has, unfortunately, turned into a big drug laboratory."
Referring to the situation in Afghanistan, the Federal Drug Control Service chief said that "even though the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is deployed there, the country still has no peace, and the production of drugs has not decreased." The Afghan law enforcement agencies, according to Ivanov, "are mostly poorly trained, poorly equipped and cannot effectively counter the drug infrastructure that has formed here over the years of ISAF presence."
The Federal Drug Control Service chief said that in his view, "the international community’s priority task should be the elimination of drug production in Afghanistan, setting up international headquarters and a special fund to combat the planetary drug production centre in Afghanistan." He said that from $300 to $500 billion that are spent, among other things, on supporting international terrorism, are handled each year by international financial and banking institutions."
The meeting was attended by heads of the anti-drug services of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.