US will not join treaty banning landmines

The United States will not join the international treaty banning landmines but will send a delegation to attend a conference on the issue this weekend as President Barack Obama has no plans to join the global treaty banning landmines because a policy review found the United States could not meet its security commitments without them.

It was the first time the administration had publicly disclosed the decision.

The United States, along with China and Russia, is among a handful of countries that have refused to join the accord that was established in 1997, but some advocates had hoped that US President Barack Obama's administration would reverse that policy.

"We made our policy review and we determined that we would not be able to meet our national defense needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this convention," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a briefing a couple days before a review conference in Colombia on the 10-year-old Mine Ban Treaty.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a leading advocate for the treaty, called the decision "a default of U.S. leadership."

The United States last used landmines in the Gulf War, and claims not to have produced any since -12 years -since the treaty has existed. However, and in contravention of the treaty, the United States stockpiles some 10 million antipersonnel mines and retains the option to use them.

But Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch said that using mines would pose big problems for Washington, because most of its allies including all but one NATO country, are parties to the treaty and are pledged not to help other countries use the weapons.

The treaty bans the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of antipersonnel mines. It has been endorsed by 156 countries.

Landmines are known to have caused 5,197 casualties last year, a third of them children, according to the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which links some 1,000 activist groups.

The review conference next Sunday is expected to draw more than 1,000 delegates representing more than 100 countries, including ministers and heads of state.

It will look at the progress of a broadly popular treaty that has helped cut landmine casualties around the world and provided relief to victims.