US Bans Anti-Personnel Mines Everywhere Except Korean Peninsula
(Bloomberg) -- The US is banning the use of anti-personnel land mines by its military in conflicts around the world with the exception of the Korean peninsula, where they form an integral part of defenses by South Korea against an attack from the north.
The announcement Tuesday comes after years of criticism by human rights groups that the US refused to adopt an international treaty banning the deadly devices. According to a White House statement, the US is joining the “vast majority of countries around the world” in limiting the use of the devices, which it said have a “disproportionate impact on civilians, including children, long after fighting has stopped.”
Russia is among the countries that haven’t agreed to the ban on land mines, which are causing civilian deaths in its war in Ukraine and making swaths of farmland unusable.
The US has a stockpile of about 3 million land mines and will work to destroy those not required under “treaty obligations” to protect South Korea, Stanley Brown, deputy assistant secretary of state, told reporters on a conference call. The US won’t develop, produce or acquire anti-personnel mines and won’t export or transfer them unless in connection with detection, removal or destruction, according to the new policy.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-bans-anti-personnel-mines-everywhere-except-korean-peninsula/ar-AAYI4rG
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