MOSCOW, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - Six former Soviet republics agreed Thursday to step up efforts to enforce the "security belt" around Afghanistan, Russia's drug enforcement agency said.
"It is not isolating Afghanistan, but a way to curb drug trafficking from that country," Alexei Sedov, deputy chairman of the Federal Service for Control of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Circulation, said.
He added that the key objective was to fight drug smuggling along the northern route, which runs through the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan into Russia, and from EU countries.
Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary general of the six-nation security organization, said that despite the US-led coalition's presence in Afghanistan, drug trafficking in the country had continued to increase every year.
"Therefore, it would not be accurate to say today that the international coalition in Afghanistan had significantly changed the drug situation," Bordyuzha said.
UN experts have predicted Afghanistan will produce about 500 metric tons of drugs this year.
