Lavrov urges NATO-CSTO cooperation to stop Afghan drug traficking

Yekaterinburg/Moscow, May 16 (UNI) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today sought close cooperation between the NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to solve the problem of drug trafficking from Afghanistan.

''Such cooperation would meet our common interests,'' Mr Lavrov told reporters after the meeting of the BRIC Foreign Ministers in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

Mr Lavrov held talks with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim in the quadrilateral format.

''Unfortunately, the NATO has been evading such interaction so far, despite the fact that some countries of the alliance participated in it,'' Mr Lavrov pointed out, adding ''the BRIC group came out concordantly for the creation of drug security belts around Afghanistan.'' ''So far the international community's efforts inside Afghanistan have not yielded the desired result,'' he noted.

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