NATO members Poland, Finland and all three Baltic states have queued up over the past few weeks to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, in the face of what they say are growing military threats from Russia.
The moves threaten to reverse decades of campaigning by activists who say there should be a global ban on a weapon that blights huge swathes of territory and maims and kills civilians long after conflicts have abated. Countries that quit the 1997 treaty – one of a series of international agreements concluded after the end of the Cold War to encourage global disarmament – will be able to start producing, using, stockpiling and transferring landmines once again.
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Source: Middle East Monitor News
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