BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany opposes sending cluster munitions to Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Analina Baerbock said on Friday, a day after U.S. officials said Washington planned to supply Kiev with weapons widely condemned for killing and maiming civilians.
Human rights organizations oppose such a move, and Baerbock said Germany opposes it as well, as it is among the 111 member states of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the United States is not a party to the treaty.
Asked what US officials said, Beerbock told reporters at a climate conference in Vienna: “I’ve been watching the media reports. For us as a state party to the Oslo Accords, the convention applies in this case,” she said, referring to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was made available for signature in the Norwegian capital in 2008. The convention prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of cluster munitions.
The White House said sending cluster munitions to Ukraine was “actively being discussed”, but there was nothing to be announced in this regard. US President Joe Biden is scheduled to attend a NATO summit a few days later in Lithuania, and the Ukraine war file is expected to dominate its discussions.
In addition, Human Rights Watch called on Russia and Ukraine to stop using cluster munitions and urged the United States not to provide them, saying that the two countries’ forces had already used them, killing Ukrainian civilians.
Cluster munitions usually release a large number of submunitions that cause indiscriminate killing in a wide area, threatening the lives of civilians, and submunitions that do not explode pose a danger for years after the end of the conflict.
Source : al24news
