MOSCOW. June 26 (Interfax-AVN) - Afghanistan's drug industry is a threat to international peace and security, said Viktor Ivanov, director of the Federal Drug Control Service.
"According to the estimates of the UN, the drug aggression coming from Afghanistan has hit 16 million people. This is an indisputable argument to call a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the issue of lifting the problem of drug production in Afghanistan to the status of a threat to international peace and security," Ivanov told the State Anti-Drug Committee in Moscow on Friday.
An enhanced status of the problem will make it possible to draw up lists of Afghan drug barons and their criminal syndicates, he said. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden has claimed several dozen lives, but it has been recognized as a problem threatening international security, Ivanov said.
"International security forces have been deployed in Afghanistan under the UN mandate. It would be logical to define the political-legal mechanism of their fight against drugs, and enter the task and responsibility to destroy the infrastructure of Afghanistan's drug industry on their mandates," he said.
"The provision of transport corridors by Russia for NATO's force in Afghanistan must be tied to the obligation to destroy plantations, laboratories, storage facilities and other infrastructure of the Afghan drug business. This would fully meet the interests of Russian society, and start a real improvement in the drug situation in Russia, in Central Asian states and in Europe," Ivanov said.