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International Convention banning cluster munitions to be signed in Oslo in December

03 June 2008 13:17 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ilhama Isabalayevaâ€“APA. The signing ceremony of International Convention banning cluster munitions will take place in Oslo in December and will be attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Chairman of Azerbaijan Anti-Mine Campaign Public Union Hafiz Safikhanov said diplomatic conference on the discussions of this document took place on May 19-30 in Dublin, Ireland. Representatives of 100 countries, including NATO members â€“ UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Belgium positively reacted to this international document banning the using, production, collection and proliferation of cluster munitions at the conference. Only Estonia, Finland and Slovakia pledged to discuss the document seriously. Safikhanov said at least 30 countries had to ratify the Convention for bringing it to force. After that the countries signed this document will be obliged to clean its territories from the cluster munitions in 7-12 years and those having such kind of weapons will be obliged to eliminate it during 8 years. Safikhanov said billions of cluster munitions were collected in 76 countries of the world currently. At least 24 countries, including Azerbaijan suffered from the cluster munitions. The chairman of the union said according to the unofficial reports, 130 people were killed and wounded as a result of using of cluster munitions. The union confirmed 49 of these facts during the monitoring it conducted.