NATO rejects Russia’s demand to destroy Afghan poppy fields

 NATO and Russia clashed on 24 March over how to tackle the drug problem in Afghanistan, where Western nations have been fighting a Taliban-led insurgency for eight years. The country is the world’s largest producer of poppy seeds, a key ingredient in the manufacture of heroin. Russia is keen to pursue an aggressive eradication strategy, while Western allies fear that such an approach risks antagonizing the local population, who rely on selling poppy crops to survive, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

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