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Kyrgyz Parliamentary Speaker Says Afghan Opium Cultivation Endangers Region


The speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament Asylbek Jeenbekov
The speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament Asylbek Jeenbekov
NEW YORK -- Kyrgyz Parliamentary Speaker Asylbek Jeenbekov says that Afghanistan's opium crop is a danger to countries throughout the Central Asian region.

"For many years Afghanistan has been the biggest producer and exporter of drugs," Jeenbekov told the UN General Assembly in New York on September 27. "The growing emergence of this deadly crop is harming the countries of Central Asia as they find themselves on the northern transit route towards Europe and Asia but they are also progressively becoming end users too."

Jeenbekov also used his address to the Assembly to call on Belarus to extradite the relatives and associates of the former Kyrgyz president of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek "who have been hiding in their territory and even have Belarusian passports."
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