Go to media bankHigh-explosive anti-personnel mines (PFM-1) «Petal». File photoHELSINKI, Oct 23 A group of Estonian parliamentarians have introduced a bill proposing to withdraw from the Mine Ban Convention, which they believe weakens the country's defense capability, state broadcaster ERR reported.
"The former head of the Estonian Defense Forces, MP from the ruling Reform Party Ants Laaneots, and 19 MPs from the opposition Conservative People's Party of Estonia submitted to Parliament a bill to denounce the Ottawa Convention prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and requiring their destruction" #34;, says the message.
The Convention was signed on December 3, 1997 in the Canadian city of Ottawa and entered into force on March 1, 1999. 163 countries have acceded to the Ottawa Convention. Estonia joined the convention in March 2004. The deputies who submitted the bill believe that compliance with the requirements of the Ottawa Convention no longer meets Estonia's national interests, as it weakens the republic's defense capability in the light of events in Ukraine. “As a means of self-defense, an anti-personnel mine is effective, cheap and has a sufficient deterrent effect. Anti-personnel mines are unique combat weapons in the sense that, in the event of mass use, they have, in addition to direct losses, a serious psychological effect in the form of fear that enemy soldiers would experience if movement on the battlefield,” ERR quotes a fragment of an explanatory note to the bill. The representative of the Estonian Ministry of Defense, Thomas Mell, told ERR that this issue is of both international and national defense importance, the ministry will formulate its assessment of the bill in cooperation with the Defense Forces. At the same time, Mell noted that «there is currently no need for passive anti-personnel mines.»