MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax-AVN) - The amount of drugs transported from Afghanistan to Tajikistan did not decrease with the victory over the Taliban, Major General Sergei Zhilkin, chief- of-staff of the Russian border force in Tajikistan, said in an interview published by the Rossiyskiye Vesti newspaper on Friday.
"The border guards detain drug couriers heading from the not want to insult our allies, I mean the Northern Alliance, but that is the truth. Positions of the alliance that have been recently reinforced are right across from the Moscow border guard detachment's area of responsibility. But it is the Moscow detachment that has detained and continues to detain the highest amount of drugs. A drug production factory remains operational in Feyzabad which has never been controlled by the Taliban. These are the facts," Zhilkin said.
All major cultivation areas in Afghanistan are seeded with poppy, the general said.
According to him, "they grow weed, make opium and heroin out of it while we provide them with wheat, flour and other foodstuffs. Where is the logic? We seem to encourage their heroin- manufacturing efforts."
The border guards have to seek diplomatic and other ways to curtail drug trafficking at least at some border sections, Zhilkin added. They seized some 5.5t of drugs on the Tajik-Afghan border last year. At the same time it is nearly impossible to put an end to the drug mafia, when a kilo of heroin costs several hundreds of U.S. dollars in Afghanistan and several hundred thousands of dollars in Western Europe.