Opium could relieve Kyrgyz debt

2007-03-09 21:06

Bishkek - A Kyrgyz member of parliament suggested on Friday that the Central Asian country start up opium cultivation as a way of frightening foreign creditors into providing debt relief.

The plan was put forward by Azimbek Beknazarov, firebrand leader of the Asaba National Renewal Party.

Beknazarov said that nearby Afghanistan, whose vast opium crop accounts for the bulk of world heroin production, had set a good example, effectively using the trade to win concessions from the West.

"In Afghanistan in 2007 they've announced almost officially that they're increasing the sowing of poppies. We need to do the same and allow opium cultivation just for a couple of years," Beknazarov, a former prosecutor general, told reporters.

"After that, all the international organisations will be alarmed and will themselves offer to cover our country's debts."

Opium is also used to make legal pain relief drugs.

Beknazarov pointed out that Kyrgyzstan had a tradition of opium production, including in Soviet times, when production of the raw product reached 16% of the world total in the 1950s before authorities put a stop to it in 1973.

At more than $2bn Kyrgyzstan's external public debt equals 72% of gross domestic product, according to recent figures from the International Monetary Fund.

The country is an ally in Western military operations in nearby Afghanistan, hosting a US airbase.

- SAPA