The drug trafficking Balkan route still has a central role in Europe, Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic underlined in Vienna on Wednesday.

There is the Balkan route of heroin transit from Afghanistan, via Turkey, the Balkans, Italy and Austria to Western Europe, but the route other way round is also gaining in importance, the minister added.

He said at a press conference that South American cocaine is being transported from Dutch and Belgian ports to Southeast Europe via the Balkan route, the Austrian press agency APA reported.

The EU project on combating drug trafficking in the Balkans and the bilateral cooperation between Austria and Serbia, as well as those between other countries, should hinder drug trafficking. Under Austria's guidance, investigators from all 27 EU states, three candidates, the western Balkans, Switzerland, Ukraine, the U.S., and representatives of Europol, Eurojust, Interpol, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the European Commission are cooperation on the operative level of this project.

Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner stated that the results of this cooperation deserve praise, APA reported.

As an example of good cooperation of security forces in the Balkans, the participants of the meeting referred to a large operation which lasted throughout 2011 until the beginning of 2012.

Director of the Austrian Criminal Investigation Service Franz Lang and Serbian Police Director Milorad Veljovic said that during the joint action police confiscated the total of 74 kilos of marijuana, two kilos of amphetamines, 6.5 kilos of heroin, 650 grams of cocaine, 6,000 ecstasy pills, money, and arrested seven persons.

Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic will finish his two-day visit to Vienna on Wednesday, where he attended a trilateral meeting with the interior ministers of Austria and Hungary.