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Azerbaijan to demand UN to include Afghanistan - Iran - Nagorno-Karabakh into list of new drug trafficking routes (UPDATED)

Politics Materials 11 March 2010 13:58 (UTC +04:00)
EDITOR’s NOTE: Details were added in the sixth paragraph
Azerbaijan to demand UN to include Afghanistan - Iran - Nagorno-Karabakh into list of new drug trafficking routes (UPDATED)

EDITOR's NOTE: Details were added in the sixth paragraph

Azerbaijan, Baku, March 11 / Trend S.Agayeva /

Azerbaijan will demand the UN to include the Afghanistan - Iran - Nagorno-Karabakh in a list of new routes for drug trafficking: Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, Chairman of the State Drug Control Commission Ali Hasanov said today.

Presently, three routes for drug trafficking through the territory of Azerbaijan are known for the UN:

1. Afghanistan - Iran - Azerbaijan;
2. Afghanistan - Pakistan - Iran;
3. Afghanistan - Central Asia - Azerbaijan

"Azerbaijan is going to require the UN to consider enlisting a new route via Afghanistan - Iran - Nagorno-Karabakh, the territory which now remained outside the control of both Azerbaijan and the international community as a result of Armenian occupation," Hasanov said at a meeting of the state commission.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.

It is known that these areas are being used for cultivation of narcotic drugs and training camps for armed militants and terrorist groups. Azerbaijan has repeatedly called on international organizations to respond to this situation, but so far no response has followed, Hasanov said.

"How can be there territories without any control in the contemporary world," Hasanov said with indignation. Probably, the preservation of this problem is in the interests of mafia groups in international organizations.

"The whole world knows that the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are outside the control of Azerbaijan and international organizations. They are controlled by Armenia. We must abandon the term "territory without control" because these lands are under Armenian control, otherwise there would not be cultivated narcotic drugs, these territories would not be used as transit and training of terrorist groups," Hasanov said.

"These lands are under the control of definite countries and international organizations. Otherwise, how to explain the fact that international organizations and states that struggle with the production and transit of drugs, shut their eyes to it. We applied to the UN Drug Enforcement Office in Vienna with a request to monitor these areas, whilst the Armenian side did not let the representatives of this organization to the occupied territories. We have enough facts, indicating the production and transit of drugs in Nagorno-Karabakh, whereas international organizations shut their eyes to all this," Hasanov said.

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