MOSCOW. Oct 21 (Interfax) - Russia is ready to help fund Tajikistan's counter-drug program, similar to the one on which Russia has been cooperating with Kyrgyzstan.
"The need to implement similar programs with other states of Central Asia located on drug transit routes has become obvious today," Viktor Ivanov, director of Russia's Federal Drug Control Agency, said at the first session of the government's commission in charge of developing counter-drug programs to protect Russian interests in Central Asia.
"It is possible to say that Tajikistan is lying on the counter-heroin shield due to the length of its border with Afghanistan. We are ready to discuss this issue," he said.
Such a program will help dismantle up to 50 drug trafficking routes annually, and will help halve the amount of heroin smuggled into Russia, he said.