Putin slams ISAF for turning blind eye to Afghanistan drug production

RT
May 8, 2013

President Vladimir Putin, center, chairs a Security Council meeting on May 8, 2013. (RIA Novosti / Alexei Druzhinin)
President Vladimir Putin, center, chairs a Security Council meeting on May 8, 2013. (RIA Novosti / Alexei Druzhinin)

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) does almost nothing to eradicate drug production in Afghanistan, and this drug-trafficking problem will likely worsen in the near future, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated.

The NATO security mission – which will pull out of Afghanistan in 2014 – has failed to bring stability to the region, Putin said at a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Wednesday.

“There are all grounds to believe that we may face an escalation of the situation in Afghanistan in the short term,” the president said.

“The foreign military contingent, whose backbone is American forces, has not achieved a breakthrough in the fight against terrorist and radical groups as yet. On the contrary, their activity has been particularly increasing lately,” Putin explained.

There has also been “a drastic increase in drug production in the territory of Afghanistan and the creation of stable drug-trafficking routes to other countries, including – unfortunately – to Russia,” he said. Putin also noted that the ISAF does little to address the problem, while Russia’s proposals on the matter have so far been ignored.

International terrorist and radical groups in Afghanistan “do not conceal their plans to export instability and will try to carry sabotage over to the territories of neighboring states and Russia,” Putin said, adding that this would lead to an increase in drug-trafficking, crime, fundamentalism and uncontrolled flows of refugees.

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