MoI: Opium commerce banished from Afghanistan

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has scorned a US federal watchdog’s report regarding continued opium trade in the country.

In its latest report, the US Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (SIGAR) claimed the illicit opium commerce was still ongoing in the war-hit country.

Responding to the SIGAR claim, Ministry of Interior spokesman Abdul Matin Qane said the opium menace had been banished from Afghanistan.

In a statement, the MoI official drug addicts had been rounded up and moved to rehabilitation centres in different parts of the country.

Eradicating the cultivation, production, sale and use of opium and other drugs in the country had been the interim government’s priority since its takeover One of the IEA’s priorities since its takeover three years ago, he added.

In compliance with the IEA supreme leader’s decree, the spokesman said, eradicating drugs had been a top priority for the Ministry of Interior.

The incumbent administration would not let Afghanistan once again become the hub of drug trade and trafficking, Qane promised.

Within its limited resources, the Islamic Emirate had been able to rid Afghanistan of the drug menace, the MoI spokesman concluded.

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