DUSHANBE, February 4, 2013 Asia-Plus  -- On Saturday February 2, the United States Embassy in Dushanbe handed over equipment to the Drug Control Agency (DCA) under the President of Tajikistan.

According to the DCA press center, the equipment is intended for strengthening of the DCA’s capacities to combat drug trafficking.

Tajik drug control chief Rustam Nazarov expressed gratitude to the United States for technical assistance and highly appraised cooperation between the Tajik counternarcotics agency and the United States Embassy in Dushanbe in countering drug trafficking.

While handing over the equipment, Mr. John Povelonet (phonetically spelled), regional director of the US Central Command program for combating drug trafficking, expressed hope that the equipment would allow raising efficiency of activities of the DCA operations subunits, the DCA press center noted.

The donated equipment is reportedly intended, first of all, for the DCA’s offices in the Darvoz district of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) and in the Jirgatol district, the DCA press center said.  Construction of the DCA’s offices in Darvoz and Jirgatol is expected to be completed this year.