Latvia leaves the Ottawa Convention prohibiting anti -personnel mines

The Latvian Parliament voted on Wednesday, April 16, in favor of the country's exit from the international convention prohibiting anti -personnel mines. Since the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022, the countries bordering Russia fear that Moscow also takes them targets.

“The withdrawal of the Ottawa Convention will give our armed forces a room for maneuver in the event of a military threat [et] will allow them to use all possible means to defend our citizens ”said in a statement, after the vote, Inara Murniece, the president of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

Parliament approved the exit from the treaty to a large majority. The decision must come into force six months after Latvia has officially informed the United Nations.

Norway, the only border country in Russia adhering to the treaty

Last March, Poland and the three Baltic States – Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia – said they should leave the Convention for security reasons, followed by Finland. The decision of the five countries leaves Norway as the only country of Russia's border NATO which is still part of the treaty. On April 2, Oslo said it would not give up the Convention and criticized Finland for its decision.

The 1997 Ottawa Convention prohibits employment, storage, production and transfer of anti -personnel mines. It was ratified by more than 160 countries. Russia, the United States and China have not joined the Convention.

Anti -personnel mines, placed manually or dispersed by rockets or shells, are used to dissuade opponents or the population to access certain areas. Triggered in contact or close to a person, they can kill or cause serious injuries. These mines often remain active after a conflict, thus preventing the return of the populations.

Several organizations deplored these announcements on the withdrawal of the Ottawa Convention. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had qualified these decisions as “Dangerous decline for the protection of civilians in armed conflicts”. “States that withdraw from these treaties are likely to erode vital protections and threaten decades of global efforts aimed at eradicating these inhuman weapons”warned the ICRC at the beginning of April.

According to the Observatory of Mines, the number of people killed or injured by mines and “explosive war remains” (unplodced ammunition, such as artillery or mortar shells, grenades, bombs and rockets, abandoned after an armed conflict) increased from around 25,000 in 1997, the year of the adoption of the Convention, less than 5,800 in 2023 mines have been destroyed in the world.