SEVILLE, Spain, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Russia's defense minister Friday urged NATO to cooperate with a Russian-led security group to fight the drug threat in Afghanistan.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told an informal Russia-NATO Council session in southern Spain: "Involving the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] in the process could be considered as an additional factor in tackling the Afghan drug threat. But so far we have failed to cooperate in this area."
"Combining the potentials of the CSTO and NATO working on both sides of the Afghan border, we believe, could yield better results," he said. "Therefore, the invitation to NATO to take part in the CSTO's annual anti-drug operation, Channel, remains in force."
RIA Novosti noted that Afghanistan is now the world's main grower and exporter of drugs and the drug trade supports extreme Islamist groups.
"Two CSTO members, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, share borders with Afghanistan and are major trafficking routes for drug smugglers from the country. Heroin and other drugs from Afghanistan have also flooded Russia and other ex-Soviet states since the 1990s," the Russian news agency said.
The CSTO includes Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and and fights terrorist, drug and military threats in the Eurasian region.
Ivanov told the Seville gathering that the international forces currently operating in Afghanistan had not been able to restore law and order and crack down on the drug trade. The CSTO nations have been operating there since 2003. Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Iran, Pakistan, and China cooperated with them as observers in 2004 and 2005, the Russian news agnecy said.
"In 2005, law enforcement organizations captured about nine metric tons of drugs in the Afghanistan region and uncovered new drug routes from it to Britain and Africa through the United Arab Emirates," RIA Novosti said.
