BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/11/2008

Turkey, Greece, Belarus fail to destroy land mine stockpiles

Turkey, Greece and Belarus failed to destroy their stockpiles as required under an international treaty to ban the weapon that the countries signed up to, campaigners against land mines said Friday. (UPDATED)

Greece, Turkey and Belarus are all in violation of the Ottawa Convention to ban landmines with over seven million weapons still in their stockpiles, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines said.

The campaign said the three countries should have destroyed a total of nearly 7.5 million of land mines by March.

The campaign said in its annual report Friday that Greece has now pledged to destroy its stocks by the end of May 2009. But Belarus and Turkey have yet to indicate when they want to destroy their stocks of the weapon.

Britain, Denmark and Venezuela are among other countries who need to step up mine clearing efforts to live up to their treaty obligations, warned Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch, who is the policy editor of the Landmine Monitor report.

"There have been more disturbing developments in the implementation of, and compliance with the Mine Ban Treaty in the past year than ever before," Goose was quoted by AFP as telling journalists.

Britain has still to clear landmines laid in the Falkland Islands during the conflict with Argentina in 1982 and Denmark has not finished clearing operations in the Skallingen peninsula where German troops laid mines during the Second World War, said Landmine Monitor editor Stuart Casey-Maslen.

"The United Kingdom has not only failed to complete clearance, it has failed to start clearance. There are mined areas on the Falkland Islands, they've been there since the end of the war, and over the last ten years the UK has not cleared a single area," AFP also quoted Casey-Maslen as saying.

"Venezuela has not only failed to finish, it has failed to start, and has even at times suggested that it is deriving military benefit from these minefields against infiltration from Colombian guerillas," he added.

The report says 44 countries still possess a total of 176 million land mines.

Under the Ottawa Treaty, 156 signatory countries committed to clearing and destroying mines on their territory within ten years.

The ICBL won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its part in bringing about the Mine Ban Treaty in Ottawa that same year.

Source:

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/10415277.asp?scr=1

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