TEHRAN – The Iranian director of headquarters for the fight against narcotics, Eskandar Momeni, has urged Azerbaijani officials to respect the public opinion and its people and to see the position of Iran in the fight against narcotics trafficking.

Despite the cruel sanctions, our efforts to combat drug trafficking have intensified and we call on other countries to cooperate in this regard, he emphasized.

Momeni’s remarks came after Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev claimed that Iran is helping Armenia to smuggle drugs to Europe, without producing any proof of his allegations. 

“After restoring its 130-kilometer border with Iran, which was under Armenian control for 30 years, Azerbaijan stopped the illegal trafficking of narcotics from Iran to Armenia and on to Europe through Azerbaijan’s Jebrail district,” Aliyev claimed during a virtual summit of former Soviet republics.

"The volume of heroin we seized in other border areas of Azerbaijan-Iran has doubled compared to last year, which shows that over the past 30 years, Armenia and Iran have been cooperating with each other in the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan for drug trafficking to Europe.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian denied the allegations raised by the Azeri president when he addressed the summit from Yerevan.

90% of opium discoveries by Iran

Iran is the leading country in the fight against narcotics worldwide; despite its proximity to Afghanistan, which is the largest producer of narcotics.

Iran is the leading country in the fight against narcotics worldwide. According to the UN Office, the Islamic Republic's continuous efforts to combat narcotics trafficking came up with the seizure of more than 90 percent of opium, 70 percent of morphine, and 20 percent of world heroin.

Despite the conditions caused by the coronavirus outbreak and the imposition of harsh sanctions against the country, fortunately, with the efforts of anti-narcotics police in 2020, drug detection increased by 41 percent.

After the Islamic Revolution (in 1979), 3,800 were martyred, 12,000 were wounded and disabled in the fight against drug trafficking.

The UNODC has praised Iran’s efforts to fight against narcotics trafficking on the occasion of International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

The organization also officially announced that the world’s first place in the discovery of opium, heroin, and morphine belongs to Iran.

According to UNODC, Iran remains one of the major transit routes for drug trafficking from Afghanistan to European countries and has had a leading role at the global level in drug-control campaigns.

UNODC World Drug Report 2020 estimates that in 2018, 91 percent of world opium, 48 percent of the world morphine, and 26 percent of the world heroin were seized by Iran.

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