DUSHANBE, July 15, 2008, Asia-Plus -- At the end of last week, the Tajik drug control chief Rustam Nazarov attended the 26th Annual International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC).  This year’s conference, hosted by Istanbul, Turkey was held on July 8-10.  

The 26th conference, presided over by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), brought together more than 300 high-level drug law enforcement officials from 93 countries throughout the world.  The conference participants focused on pharmaceutical abuse, the nexus of drugs and terrorism, money laundering, and intelligence sharing across multi-national law enforcement agencies.

According to the Tajik Drug Control Agency (DCA), speaking at the conference, the Tajik drug control kingpin gave the paper on the drug situation in Tajikistan and measures taken to fight the illicit drug trafficking in the Central Asian region.

“At the last session of the IDEC in Istanbul, Tajikistan became a full member of the Conference,” the source at the DCA said, noting that the Conference has the right to provide financial support through the DEA in investigating cases of leaders and members of organize criminal groupings having interstate and transnational ties.     

IDEC was established in 1983 and to date 16 different countries have hosted the conference. This was Turkey''s first time as host of IDEC and only the second time the event has been hosted outside of North and South America.

Since its inception in 1983, IDEC has grown from a regional to a global forum. The conference will identify emerging global trends, common targets based on intelligence and will develop strategies to combat these international drug organizations.