MOSCOW. July 4 (Interfax) - Uzbekistan can review its decision to suspend its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), said Viktor Ivanov, Director of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service.
"We remember the sudden shift in 2005 after the well-known events in Andijan, when Uzbekistan turned to Moscow again," Ivanov told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday.
Uzbekistan's withdrawal from the CSTO will make it more difficult to fight against the Afghan heroin trafficking, he said. "Of course, Uzbekistan's suspended CSTO membership will not strengthen the organization," he said.
"The key to this problem is the Fergana Valley, the point of border crossing among three countries - Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is the Fergana Valley that Afghan heroin is smuggled through most intensely. Suppliers are concentrated in this region. There is a tough competition among them, which turns into armed clashes," Ivanov said.
In Afghanistan, a kilogram of heroin costs $1,000; the price in the neighboring Tajikistan reaches $3,000-$5,000; and in the Fergana Valley, it goes up to $15,000-$20,000, Ivanov said.
"The key to solving the problem is in Central Asia, with which we have worked both bilaterally and through the CSTO," the Russian anti-drug chief said.
Uzbekistan announced the decision to suspend its CSTO membership last week.
A note to that effect was sent by the Uzbekistan Foreign Ministry the CSTO Secretariat on June 20.
Russia is concerned by the rise in Afghan heroin trafficking smuggled through Central Asia. Russia has become the world's number one consumer of heroin, Ivanov said. Each year drugs kill up to 100,000 people, according to the drug control agency
Nearly 900,000 people have been killed by drugs in Russia since 2001, the Federal Drug Control Service told Interfax in June.
"Starting from 2001, when a major flow of Afghan drugs began, 1.2 million young people aged between 15 and 34 have died in our country. The analysis shows that almost three- quarters of them died because of drug abuse," the agency said.
According to the latest survey by the Federal Drug Control Service, there are 8.5 million regular or occasional drugs users in Russia, Ivanov said in June. About 18.5 million Russians have tried drugs at least once in their lifetime.