SIEM REAP: A US offer to give Ukraine anti-personnel mine to help fight Russia’s war has thrown a landmark world anti-landmine agreement into” crisis”, politicians said Friday, urging Kyiv to snub the plan.
Ukraine is one of 164 members to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which prohibits the use, collecting, production and transport of mines.
The United States, which is not, said last year it would shift mines to Ukraine, prompting criticism from rights organizations.
The offer has thrown the convention into” crisis”, Tamar Gabelnic, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, told a gathering of members in Cambodia’s Siem Reap.
We sincerely hope that Ukraine will securely reject the US’s mine, she said.
Yevhenii Kivshyk, a member of the Ukrainian defense ministry, told the meeting in Siem Reap on Friday that” we have heard some issues raised by the community.”
” They will be conveyed to the state of Ukraine”.
AFP journalists have repeatedly contacted the Ukrainian group in Siem Reap to ask about the spot offer.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, has stated that stopping Soviet assaults requires “very important things.”
On Thursday, an national from Finland’s defence ministry said it was contemplating if anti-personnel mines may be brought up into its arsenal.
Finland abandoned the anti-mine convention in 2012, but opponents claim that Russia’s conflict in Ukraine has altered the government’s security environment.
Finland joined the Nato last year after years of martial non-alignment.
That shift angered its eastern ally Russia, with which it shares a 1, 340-kilometre (830-mile ) border– the longest in the US-led military alliance.
The signatories to the anti-landmine agreement convene at a five-yearly conference to discuss progress toward a world without weapons mines.
On Tuesday, spot victims from across the globe gathered at the gathering to protest Washington’s choice to provide Ukraine with mines.
The event venue’s sidewalk was lined with more than 100 demonstrators.
