US aid to Colombia is helping stem the flow of cocaine coming out of the South American country, the head of Washington's top anti-narcotics agency said here Tuesday.
"Plan Colombia is working. The amount of land used for the cultivation of coca is at an historic low in Colombia," the head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Karen Tandy, told a drug law enforcement conference in Madrid.
Her comments come as US President George W. Bush was set to ask Congress to extend funding for Plan Colombia, an anti-narcotics and counter-insurgent program that has cost US taxpayers more than four billion dollars (2.9 billion euros) since 2000.
Tandy said the plan had also resulted in a sharp drop in kidnappings and murders in Colombia, which were a "great worry" for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a staunch US ally.
"Plan Colombia works thanks to the leadership of President Uribe, who lives under the constant threat of drug traffickers," she said at the start of the DEA-sponsored International Drug Enforcement Conference.
Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos on Monday asked the European Union to contribute to Plan Colombia, even in non-military areas such as social programmes aimed at discouraging farmers from cultivating coca.
"We want Europe to put a grain of sand in Plan Colombia," he told AFP.
"There is a non-military part of Plan Colombia that is very important where there is room and great interest on the part of Colombia for a contribution from Europe," he added.
Colombia is the world's leading producer of cocaine while Spain, with its historical and linguistic links to Latin America, is the main gateway into Europe for that drug.
Roughly 80 percent of cocaine from Latin America that was destined for markets outside of the United States in 2005 was bound for Europe, according to estimates from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Over 300 drug law enforcement officials from over 80 countries are taking part in the annual conference, which is being held outside the American continent for the first time since its creation in 1983 by the DEA.
The closed door conference is seen as an opportunity for participants to share intelligence and devise strategies for stopping the global narcotics trade.
