NATO-Russia project to train anti-drug police for Afghanistan still running - envoy
BRUSSELS. June 2 (Interfax) - A NATO-Russian project to train anti-drug trafficking police for Afghanistan is still running despite the North Atlantic alliance's suspension of practical cooperation with Russia because the executive agency for the project is not a NATO but a UN service, Russia's permanent envoy to NATO said on Monday.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which oversees the project, received "substantial funds," which "will last it until August this year," Alexander Grushko told Interfax. "Currently we are working through various options for reformatting the project."
Russia also runs its own program of training anti-drug trafficking police for Afghanistan. That program would continue "in any case," Grushko said.
"The plan for 2014 is to train 183 Afghan police officers at three Russian centers - the All-Russia Institute of Advanced Training of the Russian Interior Ministry, the Northwestern Institute of Advanced Training and the Siberian Institute of Law of the Federal Drug Control Service. There is a schedule for getting them trained at those centers. If one compares this with the Russian-NATO Council's project of anti-drug trafficking personnel training for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asian countries, 203 Afghans were planned to be trained under it," Grushko said.