Interior Minister: 90 Percent of World’s Smuggled Opium Discovered in Iran Over Past Year
Ahmad Vahidi, Interior Minister of Ibrahim Raisi’s government, said on Tuesday, November 9, in a meeting with ambassadors of foreign countries that 90 percent of smuggled opium in the world was discovered in Iran only in the past year.
Vahidi added, without presenting relevant documentation, that among other narcotics, 72 percent of smuggled morphine and 20 percent of heroin in the world were also discovered in Iran in the same past year.
In the past, officials of the Islamic Republic had repeated similar claims without presenting evidence and documents, including the secretary-general of the anti-narcotics headquarters, who said in early June this year that 90 percent of the world’s opium discoveries are made by Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has consistently claimed to have made extensive discoveries of narcotics sent to European countries. Hussein Ashteri, commander of Iran’s police, said in June this year, announcing that more than 1,010 tons of various narcotics were discovered in 2020 alone, that European countries should be “grateful to Iran.”
Meanwhile, Iranian government officials have repeatedly used this issue as a tool to threaten European countries, including in 2018 after the intensification of sanctions against Iran, when Hassan Rouhani, the former president, said that sanctions could weaken Iran’s ability to fight drug trafficking and that European countries would not be able to “escape from under the rubble of narcotics.”
Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, leveled a serious accusation against the Islamic Republic of Iran on October 14 this year in this regard, claiming: “Armenia, in collusion with Iran, used the occupied areas of Nagorno-Karabakh for about thirty years to smuggle narcotics to Europe.”
According to Azerbaijani officials, after these areas were liberated by Azerbaijan, Iran intensified drug trafficking from other border areas of Azerbaijan, and during this period, the amount of heroin discovered being sent from Iran to Europe has doubled.
Source: Radio Farda
