Hossein Zolfaqari, Secretary-General of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters and representative of the president, made the announcement during a visit to Iraq for the second joint Iran-Iraq anti-narcotics committee meeting.
He met Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari and other officials to discuss regional cooperation.
Zolfaqari said the seizures included eight tons of heroin and morphine and 28 tons of methamphetamine.
He added that Iranian forces lost one officer in counter-narcotics operations this year.
According to him, traffickers have increasingly turned to smaller-scale smuggling methods, such as drones, paragliders, and couriers, due to tighter border controls.
The Iranian official emphasized that the country is a “victim of drug transit,” situated between Afghanistan, one of the largest producers of opiates and methamphetamine, and lucrative European markets.
He also noted that chemical precursors used in synthetic drugs are largely shipped from Europe to Afghanistan.
Zolfaqari stressed Iran’s balanced strategy of prevention, treatment, demand reduction, and supply control, and cited UN data attributing a majority of global opium and morphine seizures to Iran.
