ZAHEDAN, Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Dec 3 (AFP) - The bulldozed trenches and mounds of dust and the string of machine-gun posts ought to be enough to put off all but the most suicidal drug traffickers hoping to enter Iran.
But officials taking UN anti-drugs tsar Antonio Maria Costa on a tour of a desolate area close to where Iran meets Afghanistan and Pakistan admitted they were losing the war on drugs.
"As long as illicit drugs are produced in Afghanistan, our battle will only change the methods of traffickers," lamented Hussain Amini, governor of Sistan-Baluchestan province and host of Costa's helicopter tour of the border area.
"Combatting drugs trafficking is not in the capability of the Islamic republic of Iran alone," the governor said, giving a rare admission of national impotence to Costa, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and an undersecretary general of the world body.
At the cost of millions of dollars, Iran has been carving out gaping trenches along its 945-kilometer (590-mile) eastern border with top drugs producer Afghanistan and 978-kilometer (610-mile) frontier with smugglers' paradise Pakistan.
Religious sensibilities have also been overcome, with Iran now using French-trained dogs to sniff out drugs hidden in vehicles.
But the bottom line is still that only a small fraction of drugs are seized, and heroin, opium and hashish is as cheap as ever on Iran's streets.
In the Islamic republic, an estimated five million people are drugs users and at least two million can be classed as addicts. Worse still, more than 200,000 are intravenous users -- sign of a HIV/AIDS catastrophe waiting to happen.
But for the UN envoy's visit, Iran was keen to present itself as fighting what should be a European battle, even though plenty of used syringes could be spotted in some of Zahedan's public conveniences visited.
Costa was given a helicopter tour of an area round Mirjaveh -- near where the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan meet -- and shown the long network of crude mud defences put up at a cost of some 12 million dollars.
But as border forces commander Mohammad Fedayi Mullah Shai pointed out, traffickers who once whizzed across the barren landscape in 4x4 pick-ups now use camels and individual couriers to trek through the more mountainous areas that are harder to block.
Experts estimate that the 43 tonnes of drugs seized over the past eight months represents just around 15 percent of the total sent over the border. Seized narcotics were also lined up for the envoy -- including some sweet-smelling hashish packaged as coffee.
Coupled with that was the predictable Iranian appeal for more cash and equipment including night vision goggles, surveillance planes and x-ray equipment. As Costa quipped during his welcoming feast of grilled meat, "there is no free meal".
He praised the "valiant effort of Iranian forces" and voiced fears that the region was fast turning into a centre of drugs and organised crime -- where the annual revenue to farmers from opium growing is estimated at 1.2 billion dollars and the combined revenue to farmers and traffickers is over five billion.
"Let's hope this part of the world does not become a western golden triangle at a time when the original golden triangle -- Laos, Myanmar and Thailand -- is closing down," said the Italian UNODC chief.
And after meeting some detained drug traffickers -- who could face execution -- he did raise his voice against Iran's imposition of the death penalty for scores of detained drug smugglers, even though hundreds of Iranian troops have lost their lives in the battle.
"It was a very revealing visit," Costa said as he wrapped up his VIP tour with the sign that Iran's thirst for new gadgets and millions of dollars more in aid would not be satisfied.
"More work needs to be done in Afghanistan," he said. "Unless the farmers stop growing, the drugs will keep flowing."
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