UNITED NATIONS, December 18. /TASS/. Runaway growth of narcotic drugs production in Afghanistan is really shocking, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said on Thursday in the course of debates at the UN Security Council on Afghan peace settlement.
He pointed out a total absence of whatever counteraction to the activity of Afghan drug cartels on the part of the NATO-led international contingent still deployed in Afghanistan.
“Production of and illegal trading in narcotic drugs continues posing an acute problem in Afghanistan,” Churkin said. “The latest data from the UN Drugs and Crime Office is dumbfounding. Compared with 2013, the plantations of opium poppy have increased by 7% while the average crop yields have gone up 9% across the country and 27% in the southern provinces.”
“Production of drugs proper has grown 17%,” he said.
Churkin indicated that Russia was building up the struggle against illegal production and circulation of drugs through regional agencies and, in particular, through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Also, Russia seeks to resolve the problem by way of bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan, he said. In part, Moscow continues giving assistance to the authorities in Kabul in the training of specialists for anti-drugs agencies.