House ratifies anti-personnel mine treaty

THE HOUSE yesterday unanimously ratified the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines.

The Ottawa Convention bans production, storage, use and sale of anti-personnel mines, as well as lifting existing minefields. Ratifying the treaty was an urgent matter as Cyprus was already committed to the convention.

In October the National Guard said it would not be affected if the convention was ratified because it banned anti-personnel and not anti-tank mines.

AKEL deputy Doros Christodoulides said Cyprus was a pioneer in ratifying the convention “because it has a problem at home and despite the fact that other countries have not even signed the treaty.”

According to the 2001 Landmine Monitor report, the buffer zone, dividing the island since the Turkish invasion in 1974, contains an estimated 17,000 antipersonnel and antitank mines, “described as equivalent to one every ten strides along its 180-kilometre length.

UNFICYP estimated that the total number of minefields in the buffer zone was 48, with additional mined areas on either side of the zone.

Turkey maintains around 36,000 troops and 400 to 500 tanks in the occupied north.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.