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Afghan officials in drug trafficking: Moscow

MOSCOW: Russia’s anti-narcotics chief said top Afghan officials are involved in drug trafficking even as NATO is sabotaging efforts to fight the threat from Afghanistan.

Russian security services have information about some 40 high-ranking Afghan officials, including minister-level figures and law enforcement officers, who engage in drug trafficking, said Russia’s Narcotics Control Service chief Viktor Ivanov.

“Russia has proposed drawing up an international black list of drug dealers along the lines of the U.N. black list of terrorist organisations, but the U.S. has turned down the proposal,” Mr. Ivanov told a press conference on Tuesday.

Mr. Ivanov was one of the most influential Kremlin officials till May, when the former President, Vladimir Putin, became Russia’s Prime Minister.

NATO has also rejected Moscow’s proposal to task NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan with combating the drug menace.

At its summit in Dushanbe last month the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation called for expanding the ISAF mandate to include the fight against drugs production and trafficking, but the proposal “went unheeded,” Mr. Ivanov told a news conference on Tuesday.

The Russian drug control chief said the U.S. was also torpedoing an agreement between Russia and NATO for the training of Afghan narcotics police in Russia.

Moscow has set aside €4,00,000 for the programme, but no Afghan officers have turned up for training in the past six months, said Mr. Ivanov.

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