Part of Ancient Silk Road Is Now Opium Road FINAL Edition

The great Silk Road once saw camel caravans bearing tea, textiles and spices to Europe through Central Asia's steppe and desert. Today it is a major smuggling route for deadly drugs, mostly opium from the poppy fields of war-torn Afghanistan. For drug traffickers seeking to reach lucrative Russ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Washington post
Main Author Killen, Brian
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington, D.C WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 03.10.1996
Subjects
Aalybay Kaipov
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Oct. 2
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Summary:The great Silk Road once saw camel caravans bearing tea, textiles and spices to Europe through Central Asia's steppe and desert. Today it is a major smuggling route for deadly drugs, mostly opium from the poppy fields of war-torn Afghanistan. For drug traffickers seeking to reach lucrative Russian and European markets, the highway from Khorugh, near the Afghan-Tajik border, to Osh, in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, is an increasingly attractive gateway. "You have seen the border with Kazakhstan," Interior Minister Omurbek Kuttuev told a U.N. delegation in Bishkek, the capital. "There is only one border post, nothing else, and the other borders are no better. We have no tight border with Tajikistan and recently the frontier between Tajikistan and Afghanistan has been virtually open to anyone."
ISSN:0190-8286