The Central Asian countries are exposed to an increasingly vulnerable situation in the face of alarming raise in cultivation and production of drugs in Afghanistan.

According to the official statistics opium growing quarters in Afghanistan expanded to 120 thousand hectares in 2004 inserting additional 30 per cent to the size of the drug area of the last year.

Despite the efforts being undertaken by the international community ever-increasing flow of illicit drugs from Afghanistan remains to be a serious menace not only to the Central Asian countries but for the rest of the world as well.

Like the other countries of the region Uzbekistan is located on the transit route of illicit drugs. Drug dealers travel through the southern part of the country to deliver the opium and other narcotics to Russia and Europe.

The result of the work done by the Uzbek law enforcement bodies for the first half of 2004 to block the flow of narcotics shows that narcosyndicates exploit different courses to pass through the region. These directions include Afghanistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-Russia, and also Afghanistan-Tajikistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-Russia.

For the first half of 2004 the Uzbek law enforcement bodies exposed 4534 criminal cases related to illicit drug dealings.

During this period more than 607 kg narcotics were confiscated. It is 160 kg more in comparison with the statistics of the same period of the last year. Most of the confiscated stuff is heroin and opium.

The worsening problem of narcotics, smuggling in opium, heroin and other narcotic substances traveling from Afghanistan to abroad through Central Asia cannot be solved unless an adequate political and financial resources of international community are exerted.

The Government of Uzbekistan has always been calling the international community to consolidate and galvanize common endeavors to tackle the problem. As it was put forward by President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov establishing in Central Asia Regional Information and Coordination Center on trans-border crimes with prior attention allocated to coordinate the actions against illicit flow of drugs seems to be one of the practical ways to approach the issue.

As envisaged this Center is, first of all, to coordinate the efforts of the law enforcement bodies of the Central Asian countries in combating illicit drug trafficking and other trans-border crimes.