The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) said Thursday some countries are using the issue of drug cultivation and trafficking as a “tool of pressure”. 

The Deputy Spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, Bilal Karimi, said poppy cultivation has been eliminated and the production, smuggling and dealing in drugs has stopped. 

However, a number of countries are using the issue of drugs to pressurize the IEA, Karimi said.

He stated that a number of countries, especially Central Asian nations have repeatedly raised the issue but their concerns are unfounded and far from the truth. 

“Unfortunately, some of the concerns of a number of foreign countries are misplaced, either they do not have good and correct information about the objective facts and real situation of our country, or maybe they have other goals and want to use such an unjustified and unreasonable way as pressure tools,” he said.

According to him, 98 percent of the people in the country have complied with the orders of the IEA prohibiting the cultivation, production, and sale of drugs, and in some areas where poppy was cultivated secretly, the security forces destroyed the crops.

“Ninety eight percent of the people of Afghanistan obeyed the command of IEA’s leader and did not plant this phenomenon. In some areas, which they planted secretly behind walls, they were found and destroyed by the forces of the Islamic Emirate,” Karimi added.

A number of experts believe that the fight against poppy cultivation and trafficking requires assistance from the international community in order to help farmers plant alternate crops. 

Recently, a research organization in the UK published a report that found poppy cultivation in southern Afghanistan had indeed dropped by at least 80% compared to last year.

The report stated that poppy cultivation in Helmand province had dropped by 99 percent – after having previously supplied 50% of the world’s opium.