The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan asked the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to establish an independent agency to combat drug trafficking from Afghanistan.
Sirojiddin Muhriddin raised this issue at the meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the SCO. The meeting was held last weekend in India. He suggested that the center of the new institution should be in Dushanbe.
The Tajik minister also mentioned “the importance of the initiative to establish a “safety belt” around Afghanistan.”
This proposal is made while the authorities in Dushanbe reported on April 28 that a soldier was killed in a clash between government forces and smugglers in Badakhshan province. According to official information, the smugglers escaped to Afghanistan, and three of their Tajik colleagues were arrested.
The killed officer is 33-year-old Komron Rajabzoda, who in 2021 was appointed as the head of the KDAM department in the city of Khorug, the center of Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region.
Tajikistan shares more than 1,300 kilometers of border with Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of drugs, and shootings with smugglers on the border are repeated every year. This is the first time that such a high-ranking officer has died in these firings.
The design of creating a security belt around Afghanistan was discussed before the entry of American troops into Afghanistan. This project was once again raised by the President of the Republic of Tajikistan last year at the meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an organization under the influence of Russia.
Source: Ozodi
