TEHRAN - Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani took the US responsible for increased security concerns in Afghanistan.
The increased instability is the result of the foreign forces' presence in Afghanistan and the security crises have spread since the US occupation, Shamkhani said in a meeting with Afghanistan's National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar in Tehran on Saturday.
"Spread of insecurity on the bed of sectarian conflicts and terrorism is the old policy of certain governments to destroy the national capacities and the regional position of the Muslim states," he added.
Shamkhani, meantime, expressed pleasure in the trend of increasing role of the Afghan police and military forces in the establishment of security and stability in the country.
In relevant remarks in 2015, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif voiced concern over the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, stressing that their several-year-long deployment has not provided the least help to the war-torn country.
"I conveyed my concerns about the presence of foreigners in Afghanistan and the Afghan officials also gave assurances to us in this regard," Zarif told reporters in Kabul.
The Iranian foreign minister underlined that the presence of foreign forces has not helped to improve the conditions in Afghanistan and it has even been harmful to that country.
Zarif pointed to joint challenges facing Iran and Afghanistan, including extremism and terrorism, and said, "We hope to confront these threats by standing beside the Afghan nation."
The Iranian foreign minister reiterated that Iran has always pursued the policy of non-intervention in Afghanistan's affairs, and said, "We have always wanted the stability of Afghanistan."
Zarif referred to Iran's campaign against drug trafficking, and called for the collective cooperation of all the regional countries, including Afghanistan, to this end.
The Iranian police officials maintain that drug production in Afghanistan has undergone a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.
While Afghanistan produced only 185 tons of opium per year under the Taliban, according to the UN statistics, since the US-led invasion, drug production has surged to 3,400 tons annually. In 2007, the opium trade reached an estimated all-time production high of 8,200 tons.
Afghan and western officials blame Washington and NATO for the change, saying that allies have "overlooked" the drug problem since invading the country more than 14 years ago.(FNA)