Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli underlined that Iran is paying a heavy price for its campaign against narcotics, and voiced his dissatisfaction over the lack of substantial support by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for its war on drugs, Fars news agency reported on Dec. 28.
"The UN contribution to Iran's fight against narcotics is nearly zero ...," Rahmani Fazli said in a meeting with UNODC Representative in Tehran Leik Boonwaat on Saturday.
The Iranian interior minister urged Boonwaat as UNODC's representative to do his best to increase his organization's cooperation with Iran and also inform the world about Tehran's anti-drug campaign.
Iran has always complained about the EU and other international bodies' lack of serious cooperation with Iran in the campaign against drug trafficking from Afghanistan.
Elaborating on Iran's achievements in its lone campaign against drug and international drug-traffickers, Rahmani Fazli said Iran has discovered over 450 tons of different types of narcotics only in the past nine months.
"And this amount of discovery shows a 20 percent rise compared with the figures of the corresponding period in the last year," he added
According to the UNODC World Drug Report 2013, Iran accounted for the highest rate of opium seizures (80 percent) as well as heroin seizures (30 percent) in the world this year.
The UNODC representative, for his part, pointed to Iran's efforts in anti-drug campaign, and said that Iran is following the best method in the war on drugs which can also be useful for other countries.
According to official estimates, Iran's battle against drugs cost the country around $1 billion annually. Strategies pursued by Tehran include digging canals, building barriers and installing barbed wire to seal the country's borders, especially in the East.
Iran has recently established a central database and strengthened police-judiciary cooperation in a new effort to combat organized crime.
Every year, Iran burns more than 60 tons of seized narcotics as a symbol of its determination to fight drugs.