MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Disagreements concerning the Ukrainian crisis should not hamper the countries’ cooperation in other areas, Igor Ivanov said after the meeting Putin and former Afghan President Hamid Karzai held in Moscow on Wednesday, discussing bilateral cooperation and security issues.
Ivanov stressed that the ultimate consumers of Afghan drugs are European countries, the United States and Russia.
"That is why Russia is open for cooperation with [the United States], as [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin stressed yesterday at talks with Karzai," the council president said.
Afghanistan produces some 90 percent of the world’s illicit opiates. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that in 2014 the drug production in the country rose by 17 percent.
