TEHRAN - At the request of the international community Tehran drew up a “trilateral initiative” along with Islamabad and Kabul in an effort to help stop rising insurgency in Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Thursday.

Mottaki was referring to the meeting between the presidents of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in Sadabad Palace in Tehran on May 25 in which they discussed ways to fight extremism and terrorism, drug smuggling and trafficking, and other regional security problems as well as the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
“The trilateral initiative was a response to international community’s request for (Iran’s) help,” Mottaki said in a meeting with foreign ambassadors and diplomats in Tehran.
The minister said the plan was also welcomed by Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mottaki said Iran is “influenced” by seeing that security condition in its neighbor Afghanistan is worsening and therefore it embarked on presenting the trilateral initiative due to a “sense of duty” and also as a response to the international community’s request for help.
The minister said after eight years since the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan there is not still enough security or “hope” of the future.
Even in certain cases condition has worsened so that the production of drugs has increased from 2,000 tons in the year 2002 to 8,000 tons in the year 2008, the minister lamented.
The top diplomat said the regional plan focuses on a “revision” of previous approaches and working out a “comprehensive strategy” with a reliance on the regional countries’ potentials.
Mottaki said the three neighboring countries agreed on certain important points including a joint campaign against extremism, terrorism, providing an opportunity for economic and social development, and expanding cultural, scientific and educational cooperation