In a recent anti-narcotics operation, the Iranian Police disbanded an international drug ring.

Among the main members of the cartel are two Swedish nationals.

Reports suggest that the bulk of the illicit drugs confiscated in the operation have been produced in drug laboratories.

Iran, which has a 900-kilometer common border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins in Europe.

Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past decades.

The country has spent more than $700 million on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab, and Central Asian countries.

The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past four decades.

Europe and Sweden fully and powerfully back the implementation of the JCPOA, Helena Sangeland said, addressing a meeting of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations entitled “Europe and West Asia’s Geopolitical Developments”, held in Tehran on Tuesday.

She further pointed to the possibility of a move by the US government to withdraw from the nuclear deal and said if the Americans re-impose sanctions against Iran, it would be a huge mistake.

If Washington violates the JCPOA, it remains to be seen how Tehran would react, the Swedish diplomat added .

In comments on Monday, Spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi said AEOI Chief Ali Akbar Salehi has had a telephone conversation with Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano to warn the UN nuclear agency about the consequences of US violation of the JCPOA.

Iran and the Group 5+1  (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France, and Germany) reached a conclusion over the text of the JCPOA in July 2015 and implemented it in January 2016.

Under the agreement, certain limits have been put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all nuclear-related bans against Tehran.

In all of its reports since coming into force of the JCPOA, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran as well as the Islamic Republic’s commitment to the nuclear deal.