OSCE urges US, Russia and others to sign landmine treaty

Europe’s top security body, the OSCE, urged ten member nations including the United States and Russia Wednesday to sign up to a global anti-landmine treaty.

“I call upon the ten OSCE member states that have not yet joined our humanitarian movement to do so as soon as possible,” the body’s current Albanian chairman, Gazmend Turdiu, told an annual OSCE security review conference.

The ten countries are the United States, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Finland, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kirzigistan, Poand and Uzbekistan.

The 46 other OSCE member states are among 156 countries to have signed the 1997 Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention to date.

The Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe was created in 1973 at the height of the Cold War to ease dialogue between East and West.

American lawmakers said in May they were in favour of reexamining US landmine policy.