Following
his March 25 speech to 100 international anti-drug experts in Moscow,
Viktor Ivanov, head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service, roundly
denounced NATO and the United States for ending anti-drug cooperation
in Afghanistan, in a speech on April 2nd. The NATO Council announced on
April 1st that it would stop military and civilian cooperation with
Russia in Afghanistan — as well as everywhere else. The key issue in
Afghanistan is ending anti-drug cooperation.
Ivanov, himself sanctioned by the West, told all the leading Russian
news agencies on April 2nd after a meeting of the State Anti-Drug
Committee in Simferopol, that drug production in Afghanistan has grown
40 times under U.S. and NATO occupation since 2001. "The world and Russia face the heritage of worldwide drug production growing with the connivance of the United States and NATO," he said today.
"We have been proposing already for five years that an
official of the Russian drug watchdog should work in the Russia-NATO
Council to orchestrate the work. Our proposal is denied. Meanwhile, we
want to co-operate. We [Russia] are training drug police in Afghanistan
ourselves. But does this make sense to organize this work in Russia-NATO
format? We do not need this logo," Ivanov said.
"This is not surprising. What could you have expected from NATO?" he commented to Interfax.
He also announced that the authorities will destroy hemp and poppy fields in Crimea. "The
meeting focused on issues related to the organization of the work aimed
at the destruction of the resource base of drug production — hemp and
poppy grow here. It has been decided to destroy this resource base," Ivanov said. The meeting also set up a Crimea Anti-drug Commission, headed by Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov.
EIR Online
no. 14, dated April 4, features a major package on the March 25 Moscow
conference, including Ivanov's proposals for "alternative development"
means for wiping out the illegal drug tra
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