Thank you, Mr. President,
We were pleased to hear updates from Greece, Ukraine and Sri Lanka on their stockpile destruction efforts.
We are greatly disappointed by the fact that Greece and Ukraine remain in violation of Article 4 for 13 and 11 years respectively (after failing to complete the destruction of their stockpiles by their four-year deadline). Further, neither state has made much progress destroying its stocks over the past few years; nor indicated when they will fulfill this obligation. The Oslo Action Plan urges states that have failed to meet their stockpile destruction deadlines to “present a time-bound plan for completion and urgently proceed with implementation as soon as possible in a transparent manner.”
The lack of progress should be of great concern to all States Parties, who, alongside the President and the Committee on Cooperative Compliance, should undertake urgent steps to help the two concerned States Parties fulfill their obligations and come back into compliance, as soon as possible.
We were pleased to hear from Sri Lanka that it has made a significant progress over the past year, and that it intends to destroy the remainder of its stockpile by the end of July this year, almost a year ahead of its deadline (1 June 2022). We commend Sri Lanka for this significant progress and look forward to congratulating you on the final completion of destruction of your remaining stockpile.
Many States Parties continue retaining mines under the Article 3 exception, but never use them for the permitted research and training purposes. As this continues to be the case year after year after year, it appears that the mines in fact are simply being stockpiled. All these states should either utilize the mines as permitted, or destroy them urgently.
The Oslo Action Plan calls upon “any State Party…retaining or transferring mines in line with Article 3 that has not submitted an Article 7 report detailing progress in implementing these obligations each year” to “provide in close cooperation with the ISU an annual update on the status of implementation in line with Article 7…if no information on implementing the relevant obligations for two consecutive years is provided, the President will assist and engage with the States Parties concerned...”
A total of 48 States Parties have not consumed any retained mines or provided any updated information for at least two consecutive years. Eighteen States Parties have not consumed any retained mines for at least 10 years, and 7 States Parties have never reported consuming any mines retained for permitted purposes since the treaty entered into force for them.
In addition, 31 States Parties retain more than 1,000 mines, with Sri Lanka, Finland, and Bangladesh retaining well over 10,000 each, which together accounts for more than one third of the mines currently retained by States Parties.
For more information on Art. 3 mines retention and consumption – we invite you to consult the latest Monitor fact sheet on this topic.
Thank you.
