Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, on Wednesday launch­ed a powerful attack on the international community’s failure to come up with a coherent counter-narcotics strategy for his country, blaming the west for Afghanistan’s explosion in opium poppy cultivation.

In the aftermath of a United Nations report showing that opium production soared in Afghanistan by 34 per cent last year, Mr Karzai said there was insufficient co-operation among members of the international community in the fight against drug production in Afghanistan.