Iran Criticizes UN, UNODC for Double-Standards in Drug Campaign

TEHRAN (defapress)- Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli blasted the UN and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for their discriminatory approach towards the states fighting drug production and trafficking.

News ID: 69205

Date: 14 March 2018 - 17:15

"The UN and the UNODC as an international body and the member states should help other countries based on the existing charter but they didn’t in the past and before the nuclear deal (between Iran and the world powers in 2015)," Rahmani Fazli told reporters on the sidelines of the 61st session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna on Wednesday.

He said after the nuclear deal, the UN and the UNODC approved plans to fight against drugs which have always been carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran actively, while they have unfortunately failed to comply with their undertakings," he added.

Rahmani Fazli underlined that campaign against drugs and assistance to the people of affected countries should not be politicized as it is a humanitarian issue.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are two origins of producing and trafficking various types of narcotic in the region.

The anti-drug squads of the Iranian Law Enforcement Police have intensified their countrywide campaign against drug-trafficking through staging long-term systematic operations since 2010.

The Iranian anti-narcotic police have always staged periodic, but short-term, operations against drug traffickers and dealers, but the latest reports - which among others indicate an improved and systematic dissemination of information - reveal that the world's most forefront and dedicated anti-narcotic force (as UN drug-campaign assessments put it) has embarked on a long-term countrywide plan to crack down on the drug trade since seven years ago.

The Iranian police officials maintain that drug production in Afghanistan has undergone a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

While Afghanistan produced only 185 tons of opium per year under the Taliban, according to the UN statistics, since the US-led invasion, drug production has surged to 3,400 tons annually. In 2007, the opium trade reached an estimated all-time production high of 8,200 tons.

Afghan and western officials blame Washington and NATO for the change, saying that allies have "overlooked" the drug problem since invading the country more than 17 years ago.