Interior Minister: Azerbaijani territories uncontrolled as a result of Armenian occupation are used for drug trafficking to the world countries

Law-enforcement officials of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member countries held a session on the “Combating the trafficking of arms, narcotic and psychotropic drugs, human trafficking and illegal migration” within their conference in Baku on Tuesday. Interior Minister of Azerbaijan Ramil Usubov led the session of discussions, APA reports.

Usubov said the number of drug trafficking facts found by the Interior Ministry over the past five years increased by 71%. Nearly 6 thousand tons of narcotic plants were found and burned. The minister said the world community was right to be concerned over the drug trafficking. “Unfortunately, NATO operations in Afghanistan don’t give necessary results. The drug trafficking is growing instead of reducing. If our countries support Afghanistan in combating the drug mafia, it can elaborate the working mechanism to shut down the drug routes in its territory”.

Usubov also focused attention on the criminal cases in the territory of Azerbaijan uncontrolled as a result of Armenian occupation. “132 km of Azerbaijan-Iran borders is not controlled by Azerbaijan. It has negative impact on the criminal situation in the country. The uncontrolled areas are used for planting, production and smuggling of narcotic drugs, as well as its transportation to other countries”.

The Minister said human-related crimes increased by five times compared with 2004, 122 criminal groups had been rendered harmless.

Noting the importance of the preventive measures, the Minister said a lot of migrants were coming to Azerbaijan from India, China and Near East countries.
“The situation makes it necessary to take measures excluding transit of migrants to other countries,” he said.

Ramil Usubov said about 25,000 illegal firearms had been collected from the people within the past 10 years. The Minister said as a result of it, the number of the crimes committed with firearms had reduced by five times in 2009.

The Minister underlined that law-enforcement agencies of OIC member states might carry out great activities toward combating crimes.

/APA/