Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan carried out their first joint counter-narcotics operation this week, pooling intelligence to arrest suspects and seize drugs in an unprecedented show of co-operation, UN officials said. Officials at the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime told said the operation was conducted Sunday at undisclosed locations along Irans borders with the two other countries.
Narcotics were seized and suspected traffickers arrested, the agency said, adding that it expected Iranian authorities to provide details. Iran lies on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe. "We are waiting anxiously for the results in terms of arrests and seizures," said Antonio Maria Costa, the UNs chief anti-drugs official, hailing the joint operation for sending a very important political message to drug traffickers across the region.
Costas office said on Wednesday that the operation was part of a UN initiative aimed at getting the three countries to carry out joint patrols and share intelligence on the criminal gangs that process opium poppy into heroin and smuggle the drug to lucrative markets in Europe.
Walter Kemp, a spokesman for the UN drugs office, told the AP that Sundays operation ran from morning to mid-afternoon in the target areas. He said it came more than a year after the agency first tried to persuade all three countries to work together on the narcotics scourge.
US officials also have been working to foster greater co-operation. Last week, the Obama administration said Iran would be invited to a high-level conference on Afghanistans future. Washington is trying to find new ways to lessen the influence of Taliban in Afghanistan and get neighbouring Pakistan to ease the threat of terrorism and extremism. On Tuesday, the presidents of all three nations said they agreed that their foreign ministers would meet once a month to discuss common concern.
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