US open to talks on cluster bombs but no ban

Geneva, June 19: The United States supports launching negotiations on a global treaty to reduce civilian casualties from cluster bombs, but does not back a ban on the weapons, a US official said today.

Momentum has been building to prohibit cluster bombs, blamed for thousands of civilians casualties around the world, but states which are major producers of the weapons have resisted calls to halt their use.

The US position was announced at the start of week-long talks in Geneva on the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), ratified by some 100 countries. It came after the Bush administration carried out an internal review of the issue.

''It was determined that the United States should support the initiation of a negotiation on cluster munitions within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons,'' Ronald Bettauer, head of the US delegation, told reporters.

Cluster bombs are air- or ground-launched canisters holding up to 650 munitions, which often fail to explode on impact.

Designed for use against infantry and tanks, they sink into the ground or lie on the surface and become virtual landmines.

Israel's use of cluster bombs in its month-long war against Islamist Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon last year brought a sense of urgency to halting their firing against military targets located in heavily populated areas, aid agencies say.

The United States does not support a total ban on cluster bombs because it believes they have military utility, however it is willing to examine ways of mitigating the humanitarian impacts, a US spokeswoman in Geneva said. This would include looking at improving their reliability, accuracy and visibility.

The United States had previously argued that existing international humanitarian law, combined with certain provisions of the CCW's protocol on explosive remnants of war, covered concerns raised by the use of cluster munitions.

The Sankei Shimbun, a Tokyo daily, reported earlier this month that Japan would back moves for a global ban but would suggest a delay in implementing curbs so as to give countries time to develop alternative weapons.

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 for self defence.

A high-level meeting to review the CCW will be held in November in Geneva.

Reuters>