Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (ISNA)-Afghanistan’s foreign minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta called for campaigning against drug trafficking and terrorism as closely-related issues.
Opium production in Afghanistan has been raised every year since US and Afghan forces ended Taliban rule in 2001.
Despite millions of dollars devoted to curb crops and to encourage farmers to plant something else and arrest traffickers, the crop is still being largely produced across the country.
The country is in dire need of the international community’s help to support farmers suffering financial problems to produce foodstuffs instead of opium poppy, he said in an interview with ISNA.
He also urged for neighboring countries to make security efforts to reduce opium production to cut a part of terrorist groups’ earnings obtained in this way.
Also concerning the time of withdrawal of NATO military troops from the country, he said when Pakistan stops supporting terrorism and Taliban, the forces will pull out of the country.
There are about 70,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them based under the UN-controlled International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The Taliban were thrown out in a US-led invasion in late 2001 and are the main militant group behind a mounting insurgency encountered by international troops and Afghan security forces.
