Afghan drug trafficking poses biggest threat to CSTO member states --

YEREVAN, July 7 (Itar-Tass) -- Afghan global drug trafficking poses
the biggest threat to the member states of the Collective Security Treaty
Organisation (CSTO), Director of Russia's Federal Service for Control of
Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (FSKN) Viktor Ivanov said.
"The biggest threats is coming from Afghan global drug trafficking
that contributes to continuous cartelisation of organised criminal groups
in Central Asia and their merger with real politics in the region," Ivanov
said at the 10th meeting of the SCTO Coordination Council of the Heads of
Competent Bodies against Illegal Drug Trafficking on Wednesday, July 6.
"Moreover, three years ago Afghanistan became the world's indisputable
leader in the production of hashish, leaving Morocco well behind. The
amount of hashish supplied to Russia alone has increased 12 times since
then," he said.
"Destructive effects for international security from global drug
trafficking as targeted, intensive and large-scale phenomena can be
classified into five key groups," Ivanov said.
These are "incapacitation of borders as international dimension units
and their ability to solve tasks related to development of society;
generation of network criminal infrastructures that lead to increased
violence and cruelty, with their inevitable transformation into extremist
and terrorist groups".
These are also "steady and permanent self-sponsorship of criminal
activities in all of its forms, including the terrorist one. Transnational
drug transit acts as a targeted feeder that incites and blow up regional
conflicts, including piracy that has gained momentum in the Gulf of Aden",
Ivanov said.
Finally, this is "the destruction of the humanitarian sphere in the
states where drugs are made, smuggled through and consumed", he added.
"Criminal groups are not only multiplying in transit states but they
are evolving into network paramilitary groupings that are ready for both
armed rivalry among themselves and with governmental forces of these
states," Ivanov said. "They lead to armed conflicts and hostilities, and
small wars with low-intensity combat," he warned.
"Global drug trafficking generate a range of multifaceted
consequences, Including terrorist and military-defence ones, through a
dramatic weakening of states and their political destabilisation," he said.
According to Ivanov, Afghan drug producers have committed about 1
trillion U.S. dollars to this end over the last decade.
Ivanov said earlier that "the time has come to classify Afghan drug
production as a threat to international peace and security" and work out
an appropriate response to this threat.