TEHRAN, March 8 (News Agencies) - Iran has spent more than $18 million over the past year to seal off the country's border with Afghanistan faced with growing drug smuggling and illegal immigration, a provincial governor said Thursday.
Quoted by the official news agency IRNA, Khorassan governor Mohssen Mehralizadeh said much of the $18.75 million has been spent on "setting up security establishments and military training courses for volunteer forces."
The funds have also gone toward arming some 1,000 villages so they can "defend themselves against possible armed attacks by Afghan drug traffickers," he said.
Mehralizadeh said the measures have improved security, but that he was seeking more money to control the 725-kilometer (430-mile) border with Afghanistan.
IRNA said parliament has approved another $25 million for border enforcement in the annual budget that takes effect later this month.
Clashes between the Iranian army and drug traffickers have been intensifying, with Iran a key transit point between Afghan narcotics producers and the markets of Europe and the Gulf.
In 1999, 174 police officers and 740 traffickers were killed in skirmishes in the border area, according to official statistics.
Iranian authorities frequently accuse Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia of being responsible for the growing drug trafficking.
The Taliban are also a factor in the migration of many Afghans, with nearly 1.5 million Afghan refugees believed to be living in Iran.
