TALIBAN OFFERS WEST TO BUY BIG OPIUM STORES

ISLAMABAD -- The Taliban have proposed to the western countries to buy vast
stores of opium. Abdul Hamid Ahund-zadeh, chief of the Taliban commission
for drugs control, offered the West and the USA to buy opium for pharmacy
at a meeting with the ambassadors these countries, writes The News daily
with reference to sources at the Taliban embassy in Pakistan.

Last year the Taliban spiritual leader, mullah Omar, issued a special
decree banning the growing of opium poppy in the country. Western countries
are worried that huge reserves of raw opium are found in a territory
controlled by the Kabul government. According to information from
Afghanistan, it has amassed hundreds of tonnes of raw opium.

Local observers estimate that the reserves of opium and heroin are enough
for at least three years to come. Border control has been intensified on
the Pakistani frontier, which has lessened the flow of drugs leaving
Afghanistan along the "Northern route" -- the North-Western border province
of Pakistan. This has led to a situation when the price of raw opium has
gone up from 30 to 350 dollars per kilogramme on underground opium markets
in Pakistan. Now drug traffickers are more and more actively using the
"Southern route" -- the desert territories of the Baluchistan province --
for trafficking drugs from Afghanistan to Europe, the Middle East and America.