Iran-UN-Drug
Iran's Ambassador to Afghanistan, Fada-Hossein Maleki here on Tuesday voiced Iran's readiness to cooperate with the international community and the Afghan government in anti-drug campaign.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa.

During the meeting, the two officials expressed their concern over increase in poppy cultivation and consumption of Hashish in Afghanistan and drug trafficking from Afghanistan to its neighboring states.

The two officials called for rendering more assistance to the Afghan government to implement development projects and the anti-drug campaign.

According to the UN reports in 2007, Afghanistan is on the top of the list of 20 countries producing opium in the world. There are one million drug addicts in Afghanistan.

The drugs produced in Afghanistan in 2007 well exceeded world demand by as much as 3,000 tons.

The reports also show that, in addition to supplying 90 percent of world opium, Afghanistan has become the world's biggest supplier of cannabis (cultivation is estimated at 70,000 hectares this year).