US vows to reduce landmine stockpiles

The United States says it will adopt measures to reduce and eventually eliminate its stockpiles of deadly landmines designed to target people, moving closer to joining a 15-year-old global treaty banning the use of antipersonnel landmines.

US officials made the announcement on Friday at an anti-landmine conference in Maputo, Mozambique, US National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.

Hayden said that "our delegation in Maputo made clear that we are diligently pursuing solutions that would be compliant with and ultimately allow the United States to accede to the Ottawa Convention."

However, the American observer delegation at the conference failed to declare when Washington would join the treaty, known as the Ottawa Convention, which most nations have signed, but major powers including the US, China and Russia are not parties to it.

Human rights activists have long pressured the US to join the ban on a weapon that kills more than 15,000 people a year -- most of them civilians. Thousands more are maimed.

They cautiously welcomed the announcement, although they had been advocating for a ban on the production, stockpiling and use of antipersonnel landmines.

“The new thing here is the intent to join the treaty,” Stephen Goose, the executive director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch, said after the announcement.

The US delegation said that Washington would no longer produce or acquire antipersonnel land mines, or replace old ones that expire.

"Today at a review conference in Maputo, Mozambique, the United States took the step of declaring it will not produce or otherwise acquire any antipersonnel landmines (APL) in the future, including to replace existing stockpiles as they expire," a White House statement said.

Goose said, “We are very pleased with the US announcement that it intends to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty, and that it has instituted a new policy banning future production of antipersonnel mines.”

But Goose, who attended the treaty conference in Maputo, was also critical. “It makes little sense to acknowledge that the weapons must be banned due to the humanitarian harm they cause, and yet insist on being able to use them,” he said. “The US should set a target date for joining the Mine Ban Treaty, should commit to no use of antipersonnel mines until it accedes, and should begin destruction of its stocks.”

Source http://edition.presstv.ir/iphone/detail.aspx?id=368877