BUDAPEST, Oct 9: Afghanistan, backed by the United States, urged Nato allies on Thursday to tackle the massive opium trade, by launching a hunt for drug lords and laboratories.

As alliance defence ministers met in Budapest, Hungary, Afghan Defence Minister Mohammad Rahim Wardak called on reluctant Nato nations — led by Germany, Spain and Italy — to break with past drugs policy for the first time.

“I would like Nato to support our efforts in the counter-drug campaign,” he told reporters as he arrived for the informal talks. “I ask Nato for that.” Nato leads an almost 51,000-strong security force in Afghanistan but an increasingly sophisticated and tenacious Taliban-led insurgency is undermining its efforts to spread the influence of the Kabul government across the country.

The alliance has always avoided tackling drugs, fearful that it would undermine Nato’s most ambitious mission ever by losing the hearts and minds of ordinary Afghans, including many poor farmers dependent on such crops.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said it was important for Nato to change its approach to drugs there, which he maintains is providing the Taliban militia with at least $60-80 million in funds a year. “The drug trafficking is not only corrosive for good governance, because it contributes to corruption, it also directly funds the people that are killing Afghans and Americans and all of our coalition partners there,” he said.

He underlined that he was not calling on Nato to eradicate poppy crops, which some allies fear would undermine the support of ordinary Afghans, particularly poor farmers dependent on such crops for their livelihoods.

But he added: “If we have the opportunity to go after drug lords and drug laboratories and try and interrupt this flow of cash to the Taliban, that seems to me like a legitimate security endeavour.” Afghanistan is a source of some 92 per cent of the world’s opium and heroin.

But the calls for change have met resistance from a bloc of states which fear it could also put their troops in more danger.

Above all, they want the Afghan government to continue to lead the drug battle, and Wardak’s request for them to help could go some way to assuaging their concerns about Kabul’s future role.

Diplomats say a deal could be done which would not oblige unwilling states to carry out the new tasks.

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is the alliance’s most complex operation, but it has been plagued by a series of woes, including lack of troops and civilian casualties.

British and French commanders have also said in recent days that the war against the Taliban, which was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led coalition, cannot be won by force alone.

Ahead of the talks, Gates urged his Nato partners to better coordinate their civilian and military approach to rebuilding Afghanistan.

“We all recognise that there are significant challenges in Afghanistan and we need a better coordinated effort between the civilian economic, development and reconstruction efforts and the security efforts,” he said.

He said that Washington was reviewing its Afghan strategy and would share its assessment with allies as soon as it was done.

“We have a pretty good idea of the problems that we have to address and the key is reaching agreement on campaign strategy going forward that integrates all of the parts of the strategy that are necessary to be successful,” he said—AFP