Afghanistan has come out recently in a public bid to encourage help from its neighbours in fighting drugs.

At a regional conference, the Afghan Minister for Counter Narcotics asked members of the conference to concentrate on bringing down the “drug smugglers, drug producers and their backers,” according to this report.

This is interesting for several reasons. For starters, the report explicity mentions that the Afghan Minister made no specific mention of any countries. Remember however, that this is coming only a month or two after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) agreed to set up a seperate body to deal with the issue of the regional drug trade.

The Afghan government is apparently putting out feelers for the prospect of aid from the group in helping their drug problems - something more or less confirmed by the minister when he stated, “It requires joint efforts of the affected nations particularly the neighbours in the region to share resources and expertise.”

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Afghan government has the motivation to defeat the traffickers as drugs are financing anti-government activities. The SCO has the motivation as the drugs produced in Afghanistan have a negative impact on the stability of its member states.

The big problem however, is that Afghanistan is firmly in the sphere of influence of the USA whereas the SCO is very much not. In The Great Game, that could be a very big factor in the SCO deciding to give aid or not or even on the type of aid they give.