A US offer to give Ukraine anti-personnel mines to support the fight against Russia's invasion has plunged a key global anti-landmine treaty into “crisis”, activists said on Friday, urging Kiev to reject the proposal.
Ukraine is one of 164 signatories to the Treaty on the Ban on Anti-Personnel Mines, which bans the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of landmines.
The United States, which it isn't, said last week it would transfer landmines to Ukraine, prompting condemnation from rights groups.
The offer has put the treaty in “crisis,” Tamar Gabelnic, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, told a meeting of signatories in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
“We therefore strongly hope that the mines offered by the US will be resolutely rejected by Ukraine,” she said.
“We have heard some concerns expressed by the community,” Ukrainian defense official Yevhenii Kivshyk told the conference in Siem Reap on Friday.
“They will be handed over to the government of Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian delegation in Siem Reap has rejected multiple requests from AFP journalists for comment on the landmine offer.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the mines “very important” in stopping Russian attacks.
On Thursday, a Finnish Defense Ministry official said it was considering whether to reinstate anti-personnel landmines into its arsenal.
Finland abandoned the weapon in 2012 when it joined the anti-mine treaty, but advocates for its use say the country's security environment has changed as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Finland abandoned decades of military non-alignment and became a NATO member last year.
The move angered its eastern neighbor Russia, with which it shares a 1,340 kilometer border – the longest in the US-led defense alliance.
The Siem Reap Conference is a five-yearly meeting of signatories to the Anti-Landmine Treaty to assess progress toward a world without anti-personnel landmines.
On Tuesday, landmine victims from around the world gathered at the rally to protest Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with landmines.
More than a hundred demonstrators lined the walkway to the conference location.
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