The executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, said before the meeting on Sunday that flourishing opium production was contributing to instability.

"The fight against terrorism will be more effective if drug trafficking is interrupted," he said, citing "mounting evidence of drug money being used to finance criminal activities, including terrorism.
 
"If we don't start translating counter-narcotics commitment into lower levels of production, we run the risk of (an) opium economy undermining all that has been achieved in creating a democratic new Afghanistan," Costa said in a statement.

The International Conference on Counter-Narcotics in Afghanistan will focus on three areas: law enforcement, alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers and demand reduction.

Sunday's opening sessions will be devoted to technical and planning meetings.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Britain's Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell and the director general of Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics Department, Mirwais Yasini, will address the conference on Monday.

Donor nations
 
Yasini has said Afghanistan will be looking for donor nations to contribute to its National Drug Control Strategy announced in May. Although no firm figure has been set, he said Afghanistan would be looking for something like $300 million to fund its strategy.

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is to address the conference

The five-year plan aims to reduce opium cultivation by at least 70% by 2008, crackdown on money laundering and boost regional and international cooperation on illicit drugs.

UK, the lead nation in anti-narcotics operations in Afghanistan, has already committed about ₤70 million ($128 million) over three years to the anti-opium drive.

"This is not an issue one country can do on its own," Yasini said. "We would like the whole international community to help us."

International security

"The drugs trade in Afghanistan is threatening international security. It's threatening our interests and it's helping terrorism," he said, adding "there is interaction between Taliban, al-Qaida and drug trafficking."
 

"The drugs trade in Afghanistan is threatening international security. It's threatening our interests and it's helping terrorism ... there is interaction between Taliban, al-Qaida and drug trafficking" Mirwais Yasini, Director General, Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics Department

Afghanistan now produces more than two-thirds of the world's illicit opium supply and poppy cultivation is spreading to areas where it was never grown before, according to UNODC report released in October.

The estimated income of Afghan poppy farmers and opium traffickers is 2.3 billion dollars, much of which goes to provincial administrators and military commanders, its report said.

Three killed

Sergei Ivanov said Afghanistan was now producing nine times the quantity of drugs it did under the Taliban.

"It is understandable that by allowing drug peddling in Afghanistan, the [Nato] alliance ensures loyalty of warlords on the ground and of some Afghan leaders," he said.

"Nevertheless, the drug flow from Afghanistan is posing a serious threat to the national security of all of the central Asian CIS [confederation of independent states] and Russia. It results from the absence of a truly international approach toward stabilisation in Afghanistan."

Mr Ivanov was speaking at an international security conference in Munich where Nato countries, including Britain, debated whether to increase their military presence in Afghanistan.

His comments came as at least 20 people were reported killed and 40 wounded in north-eastern Afghanistan in clashes over the payment of taxes on the opium poppy crop.

The Munich meeting coincided with an international conference in Kabul, called to discuss ways to combat the trade.

The Afghan poppy crop is estimated to be the raw material for 90% of the heroin in Britain, but little ends up in the US.

The UN estimates that Afghan opium production last year amounted to a record 3,600 tonnes - an increase of 6% on the previous year - and said that surveys of farmers suggested that a further increase was likely this year.

UN officials have voiced concern because the crop is spreading to parts of the country where it has not been grown before.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has estimated that the output could be worth $2.3bn (£1.25bn). The country's total official exports to its neighbour Pakistan are worth about one-sixtieth of that.

Whitehall officials privately accuse the US of giving a low priority to the issue, as it needs the warlords to help combat Taliban and al-Qaida remnants and other Islamist fighters.

Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, told the Munich conference that Britain had offered to lead an expanded Nato peacekeeping mission in northern Afghanistan. "We are prepared to take command of the northern region group," he said.

Officials said Britain would lead a network of Nato military teams based in five or six cities across a swath of northern territory. The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that five such teams of 80 to 300 soldiers could be in place by June, when national elections are due.

However, the US has made it clear that the mandate for Nato's peacekeepers would be separate from that of US troops in search of al-Qaida fighters and Osama bin Laden.

Official sources told Reuters yesterday that the latest clashes involving the opium trade involved the forces of two government commanders in the Argo district.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said fighting had not stopped until Sunday morning in a dispute between the two commanders about who would receive a tax on the district's poppy crop.