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 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - NATO said Wednesday that it has withdrawn a radio message telling Afghan farmers that its troops will not destroy their opium fields, following complaints that the alliance appeared to condone the illicit crop.
The advertisement was paid for by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and aired on radio stations in Helmand province, the largest opium-producing area in the world and the focus of NATO's biggest ever anti-Taliban offensive.
"This was an error by ISAF," said Zalmay Afzali, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry for Counter Narcotics. "We request from ISAF to avoid these kind of errors in the future because it can create a hell of a problem for the counter-narcotics strategy of Afghanistan."
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