MOSCOW, January 31 - RAPSI. Russia and the US will continue to collaborate over fighting drugs, and Russia's withdrawal from the agreement signed in 2002 will not affect this cooperation, Viktor Ivanov, head of the Federal Drug Control Service, told RIA Novosti.

Russia's decision to pull out of the agreement with the US over drug trafficking was made public on Wednesday morning. According to the terms of the document signed on September 25, 2002, the US regularly provided financial assistance to help Russia combat drug trafficking and other crimes, including human trafficking, Internet technology crimes, money laundering, corruption and terrorism.

"US-Russian cooperation over fighting drug trafficking is on the increase, and Russias withdrawal from the 2002 agreement will not affect these bilateral efforts," Mr. Ivanov said.

He added that the best evidence of bilateral cooperation in this area were the major operations recently conducted by Russia and the US to dismantle heroin processing laboratories in Afghanistan.