EU, US Major Destinations of Afghan Opium: Iranian Official
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s top human rights official said the EU and US are the two major destinations of Afghanistan’s opium, and called for concerted global action against drug cartels.
“The EU and the US are the major destinations of the Afghan opium and the money is recycled back to terrorist activities in the country; the situation could not continue forever, ”Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary general of Iranian High Council for Human Rights, said in an interview with Brazil’s newspaper O Estado de So Paulo published on Sunday.
He underlined Iran’s fight against narcotics trafficking, including its hard stance against smugglers, saying that 93 percent of executions in Iran are related to drug convicts.
“I personally advocate reforms into laws, but do not believe that there should be a permanent halt in executions; we have 800km of border with Afghanistan, where the growing of opium spiked to 40 times that before the invasion of NATO.”
He said drug smugglers are not ordinary citizens. “Rather, they belong to an intricate network of armed cartels; Iran spends an annual amount of $200m in fighting these cartels; time now has come when Iran should not fight these cartels alone; we should bolster fight through receiving aid from international bodies to modernize facilities; a second issue is review of laws; the execution should be limited to the major leaders of a gang; this will immediately decrease the number of executions, which is on agenda," Larijani stressed.
"This is a tactical shift and we will still be in the forefront of fight against drugs; however, procedures to change the law would take some time which should be respected; I think reviews could be made within 6 or 7 months; with presidential elections in May, we should avoid making the issue as a campaign trail debates," Larijani told the daily.
Iran, which has a 900-kilometer common border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins in Europe.
Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug trafficking over the past three decades.
The country 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 trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past 34 years.