With the drugs trade crippling reconstruction efforts, the deal is aimed at tightening border controls, tackling traffickers -- including the possibility of joint cross-border operations -- and exchanging information.

"We hope that this will be followed by steps on the ground," Afghanistan's foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, said.

"We have not been alone in our fight against narcotics. We have the support of the international community in it."

The accord was agreed in Berlin at an international conference designed to shore up the country's rebuilding and reformation process.

It was formally signed by officials from Afghanistan and the six bordering countries -- China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Britain, which has taken the lead international role in helping Afghanistan tackle the drugs problem, helped draw up the agreement.

"It will not be quick and it will not be easy but it must be done," British Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien said.

"Afghanistan will return to peace and prosperity only if the drugs trade is eliminated.

"Defeating this cancer will be a long slog" but "the success of Afghanistan depends on it."

Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of poppy-derived opium used to make heroin, part of a narcotics industry that accounts for about half of the country's annual domestic product.

According to UN officials, the industry is in danger of turning Afghanistan into a failed narco-state, and Abdullah has compared drugs to terrorism as a "global menace."

In the declaration, the ministers "expressed their support for the concept of creating a security belt around Afghanistan with the purpose of organising an effective system to interdict trafficking of opium products."

The accord has eight points.

They include commitments to shore up border security; examine the possibility of coordinated operations; improve judicial and law enforcement measures; swap intelligence and information; destroy crops and disrupt supply chains; promote alternative trades and livelihoods; and seek to reduce local demand.