Niazi Khalid, head of the Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency (IKMAA), told Rudaw the joint Erbil-Baghdad delegation will visit Geneva on Monday for a summit lasting five days.
The Ottawa Treaty, formally known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, aims to eliminate anti-personnel landmines (AP-mines) around the world. To date, there are 164 state parties to the treaty.
“We will put forth there the obstacles gripping the Kurdistan Region and Iraq for destroying anti-personnel mines,” Khalid said.
Vast areas of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are contaminated with mines and other explosive remnants of war. Besides the IEDs and unexploded bombs left over from the war with ISIS, mines planted during the Anfal campaign and by both sides during the Iraq-Iraq war of 1980-88 continue to takes lives and limbs.
When it signed the treaty in 1997, Iraq pledged to destroy all types of mines by February 2018. However, “it did not manage to do it due to the difficulties it faced particularly when the ISIS war started,” Khalid added.
According to Khalid, it is expected that Iraq will ask for further international assistance and an extension to its deadline. At the current level of investment, mine sweepers believe it will take several decades to make the land safe.
Western governments are contributing millions of dollars to UNMAS – the United Nations mine clearance agency. Mine clearance teams remain underfunded and underequipped, however, and clinics caring for amputees lack the resources to continue their work.
