India comes on board in battle against illegal drug trade in Asia
India comes on board in battle against illegal drug trade in Asia
Associated Press, Chiang Mai, Thailand
India joined four Asian nations on Saturday at the core of the region's drug trade in a new plan to fight the production and trafficking of opium, heroin and methamphetamines.
Thai foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai said he and visiting ministers from India, Myanmar, Laos and China met in this northern city to endorse the scheme.
India was represented by Information Technology and Communications Minister Arun Shourie, while the other ministers hold the foreign portfolio.
Under the plan, opium-producing countries will step up efforts to make poppy farmers substitute their crops with legal ones so they can earn a reasonable living, Surakiart said.
The ministers also agreed to work more on marketing substitute crops to make their production more lucrative, and therefore more attractive to farmers, Surakiart said.
Apart from India, the four countries have already been working together in a formal framework since 2001 to curb the production and flow of drugs. A formal signing ceremony for India's accession to the group will be held in July in Thailand during another ministerial meeting of the five countries, a Thai foreign ministry official said.
Thailand began the crop substitution project several decades ago to successfully bring its opium output down to negligible levels.
Pilot projects are underway in Myanmar, which has vowed to make the country drug-free by 2004. Laos has targeted 2005 for eradicating opium.
The five countries also agreed to more tightly regulate the chemicals needed for the production of the illegal stimulant methamphetamine, which is mostly smuggled from China and India.
Controls on these chemicals are lax because they also have legal uses, such as in medicine and dye.
The Golden Triangle area where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet has long been one of the world's major sources of opium and its derivative, heroin.
Myanmar is the world's second largest producer, after Afghanistan, of opium and heroin, and recently has become a major exporter of methamphetamines. Laos is the world's third biggest opium producer.
Saturday's meeting was held as part of the second annual gathering of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue, which comprises 18 countries.
The topics to be covered in the meeting Sunday include trade and a government-backed Asian Bond Fund to promote the region's bond markets.
The ACD members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, and Qatar.