‘Iran, Afghanistan boost anti-drug cooperation’

General Ali Moayedi, the head of the anti-narcotics division of Iran's police force, said after a meeting with his Afghan counterpart, Abdul Rahman in Tehran on Sunday that the two countries are cooperating on a daily basis to fight the transit.

“As a result of the measures by Iran's police along the border, today, we have witnessed that the transit route has changed from the land to the sea,” Moayedi said.

"This means we have done a good job along the land borders, but we have to focus more on waterways,” he noted.

Rahman, for his part, said, “One of the first priorities of Afghanistan is to fight drug trafficking,” adding, “In the past years, we have arrested eight drug lords as well as 1,300 drug smugglers.”

Iran, which has a 900-kilometer-long (560-mile-long) common border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins in Europe.

Iran has spent more than USD 700 million to seal the borders to prevent the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab, and Central Asian countries.

The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 3,700 Iranian police officers over the past 30 years.