Islamabad, Kabul Pledge Efforts to Stem Drug Trade

ISLAMABAD, 9 April 2004 — Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed yesterday to evolve a joint strategy to reinforce security on their border and curb drug trafficking.

Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and visiting Afghan National Security Adviser Zalmai Rasoul led the talks in Islamabad to the backdrop of recent operations against Taleban and Al-Qaeda fugitives on both sides of the border.

Hayat told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the two sides focused on reinforcing border security.

“The Afghan official was told that Pakistan has been doing its best to fully secure all exit and entry points on its side of the border,” he said.

US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad alleged Monday that Taleban and Al-Qaeda operatives were operating from inside Pakistan to destabilize the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan rejected Khalilzad’s allegation as “unwarranted and uncalled for”.

“We wish to maintain excellent relations with Afghanistan,” the interior minister said yesterday, adding that a stable Afghanistan was in Pakistan’s interests.

The meeting also discussed the issue of drug trafficking and decided to formulate a joint strategy.

“The issue of drug trafficking needs to be addressed with all seriousness because increasing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has a spillover effect on Pakistan,” Hayat said.

He said most of the yield from over 38,000 metric tons of poppies grown by Afghanistan last year was trafficked to Europe and other parts of the world via Pakistan.

Since the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001, Afghan farmers have restarted poppy cultivation, banned under the Taleban regime which reduced opium production close to zero in 2001 from a record 3,600 tons in 2000.

An estimated 80,000 hectares of land in Afghanistan is devoted to opium production. Up to 90 percent of the heroin consumed in Europe comes from the country.

Rasoul also met Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and thanked him for Pakistan’s consistent support to Karzai government in the ongoing process of reconstruction.