Iranian Foreign Ministry caretaker Ali Akbar Salehi has voiced Tehran's resolve to fight narcotics, saying Iran and Afghanistan must cooperate in the anti-drug campaign, Press TV reported.
"Afghanistan enjoys a special position in Iran. The Islamic Republic has made utmost efforts to help the Afghan population in the fight against drug trafficking," IRNA quoted Salehi as speaking in a Wednesday meeting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, with Afghan Minister of Counternarcotics Ahmad Moqbel Zarar.
"Despite international pressure, the Islamic Republic pays heavy costs for the anti-drug campaign," he added.
The Afghan official, for his part, expressed appreciation for Iran's efforts in hosting three million Afghan refugees and said the problem of narcotics does not confine only to Afghanistan.
"Regional countries are the main victims of the narcotics problem. So, collective cooperation is needed to resolve this problem," Zarar added.
He called on Iran to prepare the ground for exporting agricultural products and transferring its expertise in rehabilitating addicts in Afghanistan.
The Afghan minister added that Iran provides a great assistance to neighboring Afghanistan in reducing the poppy seed cultivation in the country.
The meeting came after Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar and Afghanistan's minister of counter-narcotics signed an agreement in Tehran earlier on the same day to increase mutual cooperation on drug fighting.
Afghanistan continues to account for 90 percent of the world's illicit opium and heroin production, the UN drug monitoring body said in its 2010 report.
The poppy production and drug trade in Afghanistan has cost Iran a heavy toll. More than 3,700 Iranian counter-narcotics officers have lost their lives in the anti-drug campaign.
With a 900-kilometer (560-mile) common border with Afghanistan, Iran has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan narcotics to drug dealers in Europe.
Iran accuses the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance and US-led forces of involvement in the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan to other parts of the world.
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