Russian Lower House Urges CSTO To Combat Afghan Drug Trafficking At Legislative Level

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published May 20, 2019 | 03:18 PM

Speaker of the Russian parliament's lower chamber Viacheslav Volodin has called on the participants of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to develop legislative solutions in order to stop the flow of drugs out of Afghanistan

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th May, 2019) Speaker of the Russian parliament's lower chamber Viacheslav Volodin has called on the participants of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to develop legislative solutions in order to stop the flow of drugs out of Afghanistan.

Volodin is chairing a meeting of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on Monday. Heads of parliament of CSTO member states are taking part in the meeting along with the parliament speakers of the assembly's observer countries � Afghanistan and Serbia.

"In 2018 alone, within the framework of CSTO special operations, 11 tonnes of narcotic substances were seized, mainly coming from Afghan drug labs ... It is necessary to do everything possible to stop the drug traffic and jointly, with the expert community, we must find effective legislative solutions," Volodin said at the meeting.

Kyrgyz parliament speaker Dastanbek Dzhumabekov, for his part, said that supporting a peaceful dialogue in Afghanistan was a priority for CSTO member states.

"Taking into account the intensification of hotbeds of tension along the CSTO member states' borders, it is important to support efforts to promote the intra-Afghan peaceful political dialogue," he said at the meeting.

Afghanistan has been living in a state of political and social turmoil for decades, with the government fighting the continuing Taliban insurgency. The country has also been one of the world's leading drug suppliers for more than two decades. Mass drug production has been hampering the efforts made to stabilize the situation in the country, as drugs serve as an important source of income for such extremist groups as the Taliban.