TEHRAN – Massoud Zahedian, head of the anti-narcotic police, has highlighted Iran’s achievements in fighting narcotics, saying Iran has seized 364 tons of illicit drugs over the past seven months.

Zahedian also pointed to the phenomenon of illicit drugs as one of the major problems facing the world and said countering this phenomenon depends on cooperation among all countries in the world, Tasnim reported.

Iran’s anti-narcotic police have made significant headway in the fight against narcotics in spite of the “unjust sanctions”, he said.

Iran, which has a 900-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins in Europe.

Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past decades.

The country has spent more than $700 million on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.

The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past four decades.

MH/PA