Taliban demanded to prevent drug smuggling from neighboring countries to Afghanistan

Taliban say that all kinds of poisonous substances are smuggled into Afghanistan from neighboring countries and these countries should stop it.

According to Bakhtar News Agency, Abdulhaq Akhundzadeh, deputy of the anti-narcotics department of the Ministry of Interior of the Taliban, says that poisonous substances such as poisonous tablets, wine, acid and chemical substances are sometimes smuggled into Afghanistan from Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia, which these countries should prevent.

This is while the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a statement that the gross value of Afghanistan’s drugs last year was estimated between 1.8 and 2.7 billion dollars.

Emphasizing that poppy cultivation has been steadily increasing in Afghanistan in the last two decades, this institution added that the largest poppy cultivation in 2021 will be in the southwest of the country (79%), followed by the west (10%).

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, while pointing out that the eastern and northeastern regions of Afghanistan each accounted for 2% of the total poppy cultivation, and the southern and central regions together accounted for 0.8% of the total poppy cultivation, said that Helmand remains the most advanced province in poppy cultivation, followed by Kandahar, Farah, Uruzgan, Badghis, Faryab, Badakhshan, Nimroz and Balkh.