Tehran, YJC. Iranian diplomat has called for a global campaign against narcotics trafficking, describing drug trade as the world’s most lucrative and widespread organized crime.
Iran's Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Gholam
Hossein Dehqani made the remarks on Tuesday in a session of the United Nations
General Assembly's Third Committee.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran has been playing an important
role in countering drugs smuggling from its eastern borders with Afghanistan,
the world’s largest opium producer,” Dehqani asserted.
He pointed to the casualties that Iran has suffered during its
campaign on drugs, adding that the country spends millions of dollars annually
to control its borders and build barriers along the border with Pakistan and
Afghanistan to prevent drugs smuggling.
Iran has been cooperating with Afghanistan and Pakistan to
counter drugs smuggled via sea routes, Dehqani said, adding that the Islamic
Republic has confiscated more than 7.5 tons of illicit drugs through exchanging
intelligence with its neighbors.
The country shares a long border with Afghanistan which
supplies about 90 percent of the world's opium.
Over the past three decades, Iran has spent billions of
dollars to seal its borders and prevent the transit of narcotics destined for
European, Arab and Central Asian countries.
The war on drug trade, a profitable business originating in
Afghanistan, has also claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers
and soldiers.