U.N., Taliban Agree on Anti-Drug Pact

U.N. and Taliban officials have agreed on a plan designed to virtually eradicate cultivation of the opium poppy in Afghanistan, the world’s leading producer of the raw material for heroin. The agreement, struck between Pino Arlacchi, head of the United Nations’ International Drug Control Program, and the Taliban, the fundamentalist Muslims who control two-thirds of Afghanistan, would take five years and several hundred million dollars to carry out. The U.N. aid will pay for alternative employment and the raising of legal crops. “They [the Taliban] are ready to eliminate next year, the next sowing season, the entire poppy cultivation,” Arlacchi said. “I had to say we’re not ready.”