KARZAI BLASTS WEST OVER OPIUM POLICY

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, on Wednesday launched a powerful
attack on the international community's failure to come up with a
coherent counter-narcotics strategy for his country, blaming the west
for Afghanistan's explosion in opium poppy cultivation.

In the aftermath of a United Nations report showing that opium
production soared in Afghanistan by 34 per cent last year, Mr Karzai
said there was insufficient co-operation among members of the
international community in the fight against drug production in Afghanistan.

The president told journalists in Kabul that part of the problem
facing Afghanistan was that the international community had not
respected the Kabul government's proposals to reduce poppy production.

Mr Karzai did not explain which ideas were being over-ruled, but
said: "Wherever the government is present, the drug fight is
successful but where the government is overshadowed it is not successful."

Mr Karzai's comments were strongly rebutted by the UK government in
London, which is leading the international fight against opium
production in Afghanistan.

Britain has been under pressure on the issue because this week's
report from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime showed that the biggest
increase in opium production last year took place in Helmand
province, where British troops are fighting the Taliban insurgency.

"The Afghan Counter Narcotics strategy is an Afghan-owned strategy
and supported by the international community," a Foreign Office
spokesman said on Wednesday night.

"It has shown signs of progress in some provinces, and we are
following the same approach in Helmand. The increase of cultivation
in Helmand is a real concern but we are working very hard side by
side with the Afghan authorities to provide the security that will
allow the counter-narcotics strategy to take hold."

British officials argue there is no easy solution to Afghanistan's
drugs problem.

"Bringing down drugs production [in Afghanistan] will take 10 to 15
years," one senior official said on Wednesday.

British officials say production has been soaring in Helmand because
of rising insecurity and because the Taliban are taking a more active
role in the trade.

British officials argue that production can only be brought down by a
balanced strategy that improves incentives for farmers to switch
crops, better governance and more targeted eradication.

Nato has also adjusted its tactics to step up eradication in
recognition of the links between the Taliban insurgency and the drugs
trade. Nato will therefore provide greater support for Afghan law enforcement.

Senior US officials are keen to use aerial crop spraying as a means
of tackling the soaring production rates in some of the country's provinces.

However crop spraying has been strongly resisted by many European,
Afghan and Nato officials who fear it will force farmers to shift
their support away from the Afghan government and towards the Taliban
insurgency.

Some western officials also believe the Afghans need to be more
proactive themselves in the fight against the narcotics trade.

"We do need high-level arrests to begin to disrupt the big
traffickers," said one official.

"We're slowly seeing some progress on this from the Afghans."