How are drugs fuelling ‘narco-states?’ MPs to explore narco-diplomacy
On Tuesday 6 June, at 14.30, MPs from the Foreign Affairs Committee will hear evidence on how ‘narco-states’ may exploit the illicit drugs trade to achieve their political and economic goals.
Meeting details
The first panel will be focused on Syria. MPs will explore how the Syrian economy has become reliant on the trade in the illicit drug captagon and how the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, exploits this drug in the Middle East to gain diplomatic leverage. In May 2023, Assad attended the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia, which some commentators have seen as a sign of his diplomatic rehabilitation in the region.
The second panel will consider the wider geopolitical context of the illicit drugs trade. MPs are likely to probe the Taliban’s exploitation of cultivated poppy and opium in Afghanistan and ask how heroin and methamphetamine supply and reduction are used as a form of leverage by the Taliban, regionally and with the West. The Committee will also look at China’s exports of precursors for the illicit drug fentanyl to Mexico and the US. This panel will consider how the UK can respond to global drug trafficking and use its diplomatic leadership in the counternarcotics space to bring about meaningful change.