Gordon Brown is considering a radical plan to subsidize farmers in Afghanistan to persuade them to stop the production of heroin, as part of a broad drive to breathe new life into the political conflict, the Prime Minister describes it as the line front in the fight against terrorism.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lord Malloch-Brown admitted that the increase in opium production in the country, Britain "cannot just along disorder in the community" and must find more imaginative ideas on the eradication of opium.
The ministers are looking at what Lord Malloch-Brown described as a payments system in the direction of the Common Agricultural Policy to woo Afghan farmers off opium production. The government is conducting joint research on the appropriate economic incentives with the World Bank.
British and allied forces are also looking to destroy the factories of drugs in Afghanistan, and a much better player targeted against major traffickers responsible for 90% of the opium which reaches west.
Mr. Brown is expected to make a joint declaration on security and development in Afghanistan in the coming weeks, and is likely to highlight the strategic importance of the war against the Taliban in his first annual address to foreign policy, at Mansion House on Monday.
The focus on Afghanistan comes as British troop levels are at a higher level in Iraq. There are about 7700 British troops in Afghanistan, compared to around 5000 in Iraq.
Critics in the British aid agencies argue that too few Western aid is set aside to provide alternative livelihoods for opium producers in Afghanistan, and relatively too much going on building structures of the state and funding public sector salaries.
Senior British officers believe that the war in Afghanistan is still largely unknown in Britain, and say security is the precondition for the construction of alternatives to opium production. Lord Malloch-Brown recently returned to Afghanistan to tell peers: "The Department for International Development is looking at whether we can put on a more formal and structured in the long run what could best be described as a controversy Afghan equivalent a CAP, with subsidized Purchase of legal crops to make returns more like poppy. "
But he added: "We need to do much better not to target farmers, producers whose hearts and minds we are trying to win in the effort to combat the insurgency. We aim to industry - foregoing that the financiers, the Senders, the great men who benefit from drug production. we know who they are and the government of Afghanistan to know who they are. A system of travel bans, freezing and listing their bank accounts, related to the industry infrastructure, strikes me as an area where we can do more. "
He added that only the United States is particularly preferred to the aerial spraying of opium crops.
Illegal sale of opium in Afghanistan has been provided $ 125 per kilo in 2006. The UN said that the area under cultivation has increased this year from 165000 to 193000 hectares and the crop has increased from 6100 to 8200 tonnes.
Opium production is heavily concentrated in areas of insecurity, with the British in the area of responsibility of Helmand now the largest source of illicit drugs.
The United Kingdom has provided $ 20 m to a working group of criminal justice in Afghanistan, who managed to get only 400 convictions.
Some influential figures, including former Foreign Office permanent secretary Lord Jay, have become so desperate for the fight they support calls for opium being produced and used as a legal medical morphine, but the idea seems to have been set aside.
Christian Aid also called for support for the move to the improvement of irrigation and water management; Achieving food security by enhancing production of cereals; credit facilities for farmers, and strengthening markets exports for fruit and nuts.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lord Malloch-Brown admitted that the increase in opium production in the country, Britain "cannot just along disorder in the community" and must find more imaginative ideas on the eradication of opium.
The ministers are looking at what Lord Malloch-Brown described as a payments system in the direction of the Common Agricultural Policy to woo Afghan farmers off opium production. The government is conducting joint research on the appropriate economic incentives with the World Bank.
British and allied forces are also looking to destroy the factories of drugs in Afghanistan, and a much better player targeted against major traffickers responsible for 90% of the opium which reaches west.
Mr. Brown is expected to make a joint declaration on security and development in Afghanistan in the coming weeks, and is likely to highlight the strategic importance of the war against the Taliban in his first annual address to foreign policy, at Mansion House on Monday.
The focus on Afghanistan comes as British troop levels are at a higher level in Iraq. There are about 7700 British troops in Afghanistan, compared to around 5000 in Iraq.
Critics in the British aid agencies argue that too few Western aid is set aside to provide alternative livelihoods for opium producers in Afghanistan, and relatively too much going on building structures of the state and funding public sector salaries.
Senior British officers believe that the war in Afghanistan is still largely unknown in Britain, and say security is the precondition for the construction of alternatives to opium production. Lord Malloch-Brown recently returned to Afghanistan to tell peers: "The Department for International Development is looking at whether we can put on a more formal and structured in the long run what could best be described as a controversy Afghan equivalent a CAP, with subsidized Purchase of legal crops to make returns more like poppy. "
But he added: "We need to do much better not to target farmers, producers whose hearts and minds we are trying to win in the effort to combat the insurgency. We aim to industry - foregoing that the financiers, the Senders, the great men who benefit from drug production. we know who they are and the government of Afghanistan to know who they are. A system of travel bans, freezing and listing their bank accounts, related to the industry infrastructure, strikes me as an area where we can do more. "
He added that only the United States is particularly preferred to the aerial spraying of opium crops.
Illegal sale of opium in Afghanistan has been provided $ 125 per kilo in 2006. The UN said that the area under cultivation has increased this year from 165000 to 193000 hectares and the crop has increased from 6100 to 8200 tonnes.
Opium production is heavily concentrated in areas of insecurity, with the British in the area of responsibility of Helmand now the largest source of illicit drugs.
The United Kingdom has provided $ 20 m to a working group of criminal justice in Afghanistan, who managed to get only 400 convictions.
Some influential figures, including former Foreign Office permanent secretary Lord Jay, have become so desperate for the fight they support calls for opium being produced and used as a legal medical morphine, but the idea seems to have been set aside.
Christian Aid also called for support for the move to the improvement of irrigation and water management; Achieving food security by enhancing production of cereals; credit facilities for farmers, and strengthening markets exports for fruit and nuts.
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