Russia hopes for 'more effective' Afghan drugs fight

Russia hopes Afghanistan, with international help, will wage a "more effective" fight against opium poppy cultivation, the head of Russia's federal narcotics control service said Tuesday.

"Of course we would like the results to be more effective, especially as far as the eradication of drug crops in the southern part of Afghanistan is concerned," Viktor Ivanov told a news conference in Kabul.

"The drug trafficking begins at the place where the drugs are cultivated," he said, estimating that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was worth 65 billion dollars a year.

However, "the Afghan government needs the international support because it lacks finance, resources and force," he said, after an international meeting on the problem.

Organised by Russia, the meeting Tuesday brought together 30 officials from 15 countries, including representatives from the NATO force in Afghanistan, the UN and the Afghan administration.

Drawing up a list of land owners implicated in the drug trade was among the items under consideration at the meeting.

"We would like to exchange information about them and to have the names in one list," said Ivanov.

"Because in accordance with the law signed by President (Hamid) Karzai such people should be held responsible for cultivation of opium poppy on their lands," he said.

Ivanov however said he believed that military action was not an option.

Of the 65 billion dollars from the annual trade, "the peasants get 500 million ... the Taliban get from 150 to 300 million" but "the most part of the money goes to the drug mafia which organises the process of the drug production," the Russian said.

"From this we can make the conclusion that there is no military solution to this problem."

The United States has expressed doubts over the campaigns to eradicate opium production, estimating that they harm the poorest section of the Afghan population which grows the poppies used to produce opium and heroin.

But this attitude worries Moscow, which says 30,000 Russians died in 2009 from using heroin which came from Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama's administration has largely avoided crop eradication in favor of seeking to convince farmers to abandon poppy cultivation in favor of other agriculture.

The strategy allows police to target traffickers over producers of narcotics.