Major UN drug report raps Ashgabat for lack of cooperation

Turkmenistan's lack of cooperation with the international community in its fight against illicit drugs has drawn sharp criticism from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an independent UN body monitoring global drug proliferation. "Turkmenistan is a party to the three main drug control conventions already since 1996," Herbert Schaepe, Secretary of the INCB Board, told IRIN from Vienna. "As a country in an extremely important geographical location, with more than 700 km of a common border with Afghanistan, we would expect Turkmenistan to fully comply with the provisions of the international drug control treaties and to cooperate closely and actively with other countries, as well as the international drug control organs, including [the] INCB, in the fight against illicit drugs." Explaining the problem, Ambassador Nuzhet Kandemir, another INCB board member, told IRIN in Ankara that the Board (INCB) had sent two different missions to the country in the years 2003 and 2004 with a view to assisting the authorities in the fulfillment of their obligations. However, Board members received little help from the Turkmen authorities, he claimed, noting that requests for appointments with senior officials had also been declined. "Unfortunately, our efforts to start such a dialogue have not been successful so far," Schaepe concurred. Their comments coincide with Wednesday's release of the INCB's annual global report for 2003. The impact of drug abuse on crime and violence at the community level is the focus of the first chapter, while global illegal drug production, trafficking and abuse trends are also reviewed. Harm reduction policies, online drug trafficking, the abuse of synthetic drugs and uneven distribution of opiate-based painkillers for legal consumption are among the highlights of the report. The Vienna-based INCB was particularly critical of Turkmenistan this year, noting that Ashgabat with not doing more in the global fight against illicit drugs trafficking. The largely desert, but energy-rich, nation of 5.5 million lies northwest of Afghanistan, a primary source country for illicit drug trafficking. On Monday, a report on global narcotics by the US State Department warned of near-record levels of opium production in Afghanistan. The report said international and U.S. surveys in 2003 indicated that Afghanistan was responsible for 75 percent of the world's opium production, with poppies under cultivation in 28 of the country's 32 provinces. Despite that fact, Turkmenistan was the only country neighbouring Afghanistan which was not yet participating in Operation Topaz, an international monitoring operation which was launched by the INCB in 2001, focusing on acetic anhydride, a critical chemical ingredient used in the illicit manufacture of heroin, an INCB statement said. "The Board urges the Government of Turkmenistan to join Operation Topaz without delay in order to ensure that traffickers will not use the country to smuggle acetic anhydride to Afghanistan." Additionally, the INCB was also concerned that Ashgabat had failed to participate in several regional and sub-regional drug control activities or was not actively participating in those cooperative arrangements which it had formally joined, citing a seminar which INCB co-organised in August 2003 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, aimed at strengthening drug control capacities of Central Asian countries. According to the statement, Turkmenistan was the only country in the region which did not participate in that seminar. Similarly, Turkmenistan was the only country from Central Asia which did not attend the Third Anti-Narcotics Regional Training Exercise for police and customs officers, held in Tehran in December 2002, it added. Kandemir hoped such comments by the INCB would result in more "cooperative endeavour" from the Turkmen authorities - for the benefit of Turkmenistan, the region in particular and the world. "Turkmenistan must not become the weak link in the chain of international drug control efforts," the INCB statement concluded. [For a complete copy of the INCB report see: www.incb.org]