Afghan president announces visit to Moscow to hold talks with Russian president

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai will travel to Russia this week to bolster relations with his nation's former enemy, the government announced Monday.
During the two-day trip, being made at the invitation of Russia President Dmitry Medvedev, the two leaders will discuss economic issues, the statement said. They also will likely discuss Moscow's concern about the flow of drugs into Russia and an uptick in Taliban activity in northern Afghanistan.
Separately, NATO reported that a service member died Monday in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan, raising the number killed so far this month to 19, including at least 14 Americans.
Last month, drug-control agencies from Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan agreed to step up co-operation to stop the flow of drugs through Afghan borders. The signing of the deal came a few months after Karzai expressed anger for not being given advance notice of a drug raid jointly conducted by U.S., Afghan and Russian agents on the Pakistani border in October.
Afghanistan produces 90 per cent of the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin.
Russia has urged the U.S. military to take stronger action against Afghan drug labs. The bulk of drugs produced in Afghanistan flows through ex-Soviet Central Asia and Russia, which has around 2 million opium and heroin addicts.
Russia has promised to do more to help NATO in Afghanistan, but up to now, Moscow has offered only lukewarm support for the U.S.-led war and has limited itself to letting NATO take military supplies across its territory. Last month, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin complained to the U.N. Security Council about increasing Taliban activity in previously calm areas in north and northeast Afghanistan.
The two nations have friendly relations, but tensions linger over the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
The Soviet Union was forced to withdraw after nine years by U.S.-backed anti-communist fighters, who took power in 1992. A few years later, the Taliban seized Kabul after a violent civil war and ruled with a strict interpretation of Islamic law until they were ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.