(RIA Novosti) - Russia's interior minister said Thursday that opium poppy production kept growing in Afghanistan, despite measures taken by the global community to counter it.
Since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001, the international community has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on efforts to destroy poppy crops, close drug labs, pay subsidies to impoverished farmers and encourage them to cultivate alternate crops, reports Trend.
"Unfortunately, despite all the measures being taken by the world community, opium production in Afghanistan has not declined, but has continued growing every year," said Rashid Nurgaliyev at a meeting of Russian and Tajik Interior Ministry officials in Tajikistan, which borders on Afghanistan, the world's leading supplier of illegal drugs.
Nurgaliyev said Tajikistan, which was on the "northern" route leading to Western Europe through Russia, was "on the forefront" of the fight against drug trafficking.
Although Russia withdrew its border guard units from the former Soviet republic in 2005, handing control over the volatile frontier to Tajik guards, it has maintained an advisory role and continued to offer assistance. Russia has a military base in Tajikistan with several thousand personnel.
The minister said the growing drug, terrorism and extremist menace meant that Russia and Tajikistan, along with other members of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had to improve border controls.
"Toughening state control over migration is still an acute problem facing Russia, Tajikistan and other CIS countries today," Nurgaliyev said.
He urged combined measures to curb illegal migration, which has evolved into a global problem that hampers socioeconomic development and promotes crime.
Russia has grown dependent on a foreign labor force, mainly from Central Asia and other CIS states. But many migrant laborers are in Russia illegally as a result of complicated registration procedures, a situation that leads to poor working conditions and arbitrary enforcement by corrupt officials.
Nurgaliyev acknowledged that some progress has been achieved. The two countries have set up working groups in five Russian cities that issue foreign passports to Tajiks working in Russia.