November 22, 2008	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 23, 1429

GENEVA: Millions of landmines remain uncleared from as far a field as the Falkland Islands to the Danish coast and states must do more to ensure they are eradicated completely, activists warned on Friday.

Greece, Turkey and Belarus are all in violation of the Ottawa Convention to ban landmines with over seven million weapons still in their stockpiles, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines said. But Britain, Denmark and Venezuela are among other countries who need to step up mine clearing efforts to live up to their treaty obligations, warned Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch, who is the policy editor of the Landmine Monitor report.

“There have been more disturbing developments in the implementation of, and compliance with the Mine Ban Treaty in the past year than ever before,” Goose told journalists. Britain has still to clear landmines laid in the Falkland Islands during the conflict with Argentina in 1982 and Denmark has not finished clearing operations in the Skallingen peninsula where German troops laid mines during the Second World War, said Landmine Monitor editor Stuart Casey-Maslen.

“The UK has not only failed to complete clearance, it has failed to start clearance. There are mined areas on the Falkland Islands, they’ve been there since the end of the war, and over the last 10 years the UK has not cleared a single area,” Casey-Maslen said.—AFP