U.N. SEES MORE AFGHAN OPIUM PRODUCTION THIS YEAR

ISLAMABAD, June 25 (Reuters) - A U.N. body said on Friday opium production
in Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of the drug, was expected to
increase from last year due to good weather for poppy cultivation.

Bernard Frahi, representative of the United Nations Drug Control Programme
(UNDCP) for Pakistan and Afghanistan, told a news conference that good
weather was likely to boost production of opium in Afghanistan this year. He
gave no figures.

Afghanistan produced 2,100 tonnes of opium from poppy cultivated on 63,000
acres (25,200 hectares) in 1998, down on previous years because of bad
weather.

Frahi said several U.N. initiatives were under way to try to restrict poppy
cultivation with the assistance of the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan.

"We have selected Hilmund province...where almost half of Afghanistan's
poppy is grown, for a joint coordinated programme," Frahi said.

Under the programme, with the help of other United Nations bodies and
non-government organisations, the UNDCP aims to raise the infrastructure
facilities in the province to try to dissuade farmers from growing poppy.

"Based on our experience in Afghanistan we know that we need the support of
donor countries and the support of the Taleban authorities for the
programme," Frahi said.

An Afghan farmer sells a kilogram of opium for about $60 which is processed
into heroin that sells for $1,000 per kg.

In neighbouring Tajikistan the cost becomes $3,000 per kg and finally in the
consuming countries in Western Europe a kilogram of heroin costs about
$150,000, Frahi said.

He said drug traffickers used Pakistan, Iran and central Asian states to
smuggle narcotics from Afghanistan. "The routes are mainly going to Western
Europe and a little bit is going to the United States," he added.

Afghanistan and the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia -- straddling the
borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos -- are thought to be the world's two
biggest opium producers but Frahi said at present Afghanistan had that
dubious distinction.

He said an anti-poppy campaign in Pakistan was quite successful and almost
all poppy growing areas in the North West Frontier Province had been
cleared.

Under the United Nations programme, Pakistan is commited to eliminate poppy
growth by the year 2000.

In 1998 more than 4,500 acres of poppy crop was destroyed in different
tribal areas and another 2,000 destroyed by tribesmen voluntarily in
Pakistan. REUTERS