Senior UN official visits Afghanistan to push for counter-narcotics measures

The potential risk of drug cultivation in Afghanistan topped the agenda of just-concluded talks between the senior United Nations anti-narcotics official and leaders in the country, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported today.

Antonio Maria Costa, who heads UNODC, met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, government officials, representatives of coalition countries, the ISAF-NATO Commander and heads of UN agencies during his two-day visit to the country, which ended on Saturday.

Mr. Costa complimented President Karzai for the progress made in 2005 in institution building, relating to all areas of governance, but particularly in fighting drugs. The UNODC chief said the year 2005 “demonstrated that strong counter-narcotics policy has a positive impact on cultivation,” pointing out that poppy growing was down by 20 per cent from the previous year.

But he also warned that “unless strong measures are taken in the course of 2006, we risk witnessing a reversal.”

In talks with government officials, Mr. Costa pushed for thorough implementation of the newly adopted National Drug Control Strategy. “In the immediate future policy will have to concentrate on law enforcement, including eradication of opium fields,” he said. “But sustainable success can only be accomplished with the instruments of development, namely providing farmers with the conditions to earn an honest income, alternative to drugs.”

The Afghanistan Compact, a visionary framework slated for adoption at an upcoming international conference in London, places counter-narcotics as the key cross-cutting theme that must be addressed. Mr. Costa urged participants at the London meeting “to support concretely the Government's counter-narcotics policy, helping farmers to opt out of opium, but also arrest international traffickers and seize their assets.”

In 2006, Afghanistan faces the risk of migration of opium cultures to border areas affected by security threats, as well a general increase in cultivation, according to UNODC, which is completing its winter opium assessment survey in Afghanistan.