TEHRAN (Tasnim) � Nearly six thousand foreign nationals are spending time in Iran�s jails, Prosecutor General of the Iranian capital Tehran Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced Sunday.

Almost 6,000 expatriates have been jailed in Iran, half of whom are Afghan citizens, Jafari Dolatabadi said during a conference in Tehran.

The event was attended by Iran�s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Chief of the Iranian Judiciary's Human Rights Council Mohammad Javad Larijani.

He further suggested that Iran�s foreign ministry can pave the way for repatriation of the foreign inmates to their own countries based on the existing agreements between the Islamic Republic and other countries.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Jafari Dolatabadi said the foreign ministry can also help with the Islamic Republic�s fight against drug trafficking, which is an �organized crime�.

Iran is on a major transit route for drugs being smuggled from Afghanistan to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the country�s war on drug-traffickers has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police forces over the past 34 years.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Iran is netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all other countries in the world combined.

By Tasnim News Agency