In a meeting on Thursday between Iran’s Anti-Narcotics Police Chief Brigadier General Ali Moayyedi and Italy’s Director of the Central Directorate for Anti-Drug Services Major General Andrea De Gennaro, the two sides agreed to develop collaboration in the fight against narcotics smuggling.
The meeting was held in the Italian capital of Rome on the sidelines of the 31st annual meeting of the International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC).
The two countries also agreed to collaborate in training drug enforcement forces.
The Italian official in this meeting lauded the Islamic Republic of Iran’s role in the fight against drug-trafficking.
Iran is on a major transit route for drugs being smuggled from Afghanistan to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the country's war on drug-traffickers has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police forces over the past 34 years.
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Iran is netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all other countries in the world combined.