Iranian interior minister attends anti-drug conference in Islamabad

TEHRAN,Nov.14(MNA) – Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar attended the Regional Ministerial Conference on Counter-Narcotics, which was held in Islamabad on Tuesday. Ministers from 11 other regional countries, namely Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, participated in the conference. An expert-level meeting was held a day before the main conference. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani delivered the opening speech of the conference on Tuesday, in which he stated that the two-day conference was aimed at staunching the drugs in the region and the coherent anti-drug efforts would be enhanced with the holding of the conference, the Nation reported. According to the report, Jilani had previously said that the aim of the ministerial conference was to share national experiences in countering the menace of illicit drugs and discuss prospects of regional cooperation in developing pragmatic, comprehensive, and sustainable ways of addressing the multifaceted challenge posed by illicit drugs production, demand, and trafficking.