BRUSSELS, Nov 16: The UN’s anti-narcotics chief on Friday warned that Afghanistan’s burgeoning opium production was leading to the emergence of two new “Golden Triangles” of lawlessness on the country’s borders with Pakistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.

“Illegality is very pervasive and trafficking (is) going on,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime.

He said the region where the Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani borders meet near the Iranian city of Zahedan, and the area where the frontiers of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan converge had replaced the old Golden Triangle on the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand as centres of the world trade in opium and heroin.

Costa praised Iranian efforts to tackle cross-border smuggling. He said Western nations at loggerheads with Iran over other issues were cooperating in its fight against illegal narcotics, but said Iran needs more international support.

’’In my area, counter narcotics, I have seen a great amount of collaboration,’’ he told a news conference. ‘’The country is under attack, it is our responsibility to assist Iran, which is doing its best.’’

Costa said he had seen Iranian intelligence reports showing armed convoys of more than 60 vehicles driving into Iran from Afghanistan and said Iranian authorities reported 3,400 members of its security forces have been killed fighting the drug trade over the past five years.

At a conference on Afghanistan, Costa presented the UN’s final 2007 report on opium production in the country, the origin of 93 per cent of the world’s heroin. The report’s provisional findings were released by the UN office in August.

It shows that Afghanistan saw a record harvest of 8,200 metric tons (9,000 short tons) of opium in 2007, a 34-per cent increase over 2006. The export value of the country’s opium is estimated at $4 billion (euro 2.73 billion), up 29 per cent on last year and equal to more than half of Afghanistan’s legal gross domestic product. Costa welcomed signs that Nato is preparing to take a more active role in the fight against opium production in Afghanistan, which he said was the main source of funding for the Taliban.—AP