Interior Minister: Insurgency, Terrorism Derive from Drug Trafficking

The minister’s comment came during a special ceremony held to incinerate more than 100 tons of narcotics in Tehran on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

“Unfortunately, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has taken up 219,000 hectares from the previous 195,000 and the country produces some 5,500 tons of different narcotics, showing a 46-percent increase. Iran’s proximity to Afghanistan has encouraged the traffickers to choose Iran as a major transit route to carry the drugs into their end markets in Europe and this has given rise to political, security, and social consequences in our country,” said the minister during the ceremony.

Rahmani Fazli added that Iran’s eastern borders have been equipped with physical and electronic facilities in order to control and confront trafficking and noted that 70 percent of the seizures last year took place at the borders.

“Given the adverse consequences of illicit trafficking, we expect all the countries and international bodies to have necessary cooperation with Iran over issues related to intelligence, legal and equipment supports, as well as regional and international collaboration,” said the minister, referring to other countries’ contribution in this regard as insignificant.

Iran lies on a major trafficking route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states. The country's war on drug-traffickers has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian security forces over the past 34 years.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Iran is netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all other countries in the world combined.