Calls Geneva Accord 'A Significant Step'
Landmines kill or maim 25,000 people every year. About 110 million mines lie hidden in 64 countries.
Images by Cynthia LeeWASHINGTON, May 3 (Reuters) — The United States on Friday welcomed a new agreement on land mines as a significant improvement that could greatly protect civilians around the world. "We think that this revised protocol is an important first step toward our goal, which is the eventual elimination of anti-personnel land mines all together from the face of earth," State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said. He spoke after delegates from 55 countries meeting in Geneva tightened rules on the use of land mines. They ignored, however, demands for an outright ban on the weapons that kill one person every 20 minutes around the world.
At a news briefing, Burns acknowledged "the reality of the negotiations is that we have been swimming upstream against a number of countries that aren't interested at all in banning land mines."
So while the United States did not succeed in resolving the land mine issue to its satisfaction: "I can say that because of our influence and the work of some of our friends, we've significantly strengthened" rules governing their use, he said.
An inter-governmental conference in Geneva revising the land mines protocol of the 1980 U.N. Conventional Weapons Convention outlawed undetectable anti-personnel mines and put tighter restrictions on use of other "smarter" types of mine.
But a total ban on anti-personnel mines, sought by more than 30 governments as well as the United Nations and the international Red Cross, will have to wait for at least five years.
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