Landmine Ban Deadline Extended

By Jeff Abramson

At the ninth meeting of states-parties to the 1997 Mine Ban Convention, also referred to as the Ottawa Convention, in November 2008, 15 countries requested and received extensions to their 2009 demining deadlines. The United Kingdom received a 10-year extension, the maximum possible, and agreed to "proceed immediately with the clearance of three mined areas" and to provide a detailed update and demining plan by June 30, 2010. Prior to the extension, the country had been criticized for failing to take action to clear mine-impacted areas of the Falkland Islands, which are also claimed by Argentina. Clearance deadline extensions of varying lengths were also granted to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chad, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Jordan, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Senegal, Thailand, Venezuela, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

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1 comment:

Selcuk said...

Turkey actually did not clamimed but officially declared that 800.000 APLs are destroyed in November 2008. I am sure that number is over one million APLs as of now.