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Date: | Fri, 21 Sep 2001 09:27:31 -0400 |
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Pravda.RU:
Hot spots:More in detail
15:12 2001-07-11
TALIBAN OFFERS WEST TO BUY BIG OPIUM
STORES
The Taliban have proposed to the western countries to buy vast
stores of
opium. Abdul Hamid Ahund-zadeh, chief of the Taliban commission for
drugs
control, offered the West and the USA to buy opium for pharmacy at
a
meeting with the ambassadors these countries, writes The News daily
with
reference to sources at the Taliban embassy in
Pakistan.
Last year the Taliban spiritual leader, mullah Omar, issued a special
decree banning the growing of opium poppy in the country. Western
countries are worried that huge reserves of raw opium are found in
a
territory controlled by the Kabul government. According to information
from Afghanistan, it has amassed hundreds of tonnes of raw
opium.
Local observers estimate that the reserves of opium and heroin are
enough
for at least three years to come. Border control has been
intensified on
the Pakistani frontier, which has lessened the flow of drugs leaving
Afghanistan along the "Northern route" -- the North-Western
border
province of Pakistan. This has led to a situation when the price of
raw
opium has gone up from 30 to 350 dollars per kilogramme on underground
opium markets in Pakistan. Now drug traffickers are more and
more
actively using the "Southern route" -- the desert territories of
the
Baluchistan province -- for trafficking drugs from Afghanistan to
Europe,
the Middle East and America.
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