Japan to back cluster bomb ban,advise delay-report

TOKYO, June 10 (Reuters) Japan will back moves for a global ban on cluster bombs but will suggest a delay in implementing curbs to give countries time to develop alternative weapons, a Tokyo daily reported today.

Tokyo had decided to ''basically agree'' to a ban at meetings of the 100-country Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva later this month and in November, the Sankei Shimbun said, citing research by the foreign and defence ministries.

Debate over cluster bombs, condemned because of the high rates of civilian casualties they cause, has intensified but big cluster munitions-producing states have resisted moves to stop their use.

Nearly 70 countries pledged support in May for a declaration calling for an international ban by 2008, but the United States, Russia and China -- the world's military giants -- were not among them.

Japan had also been declining to back the declaration, saying it needed such weapons to defend itself.

Now Tokyo was set to support the ban and to take part in shaping it so as to prevent the curbs from taking effect at once, the Sankei said.

Japan would call for countries to be allowed sufficient time to develop other weapons and would push for the United States, Russia and China to take part in the declaration to make the ban more effective, the report added.

Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma said last month that Japan would never use cluster bombs to attack other countries, but was stockpiling them to prevent invaders from landing on its shores.

REUTERS SG ND1002