Austria pledges to ban cluster bombs

A 48-nation meeting on cluster bombs opened in Oslo, Norway, today with Austria pledging to ban the weapons and organisers saying an international treaty outlawing the munitions could be achieved by 2008.

“I believe any other target will be a wrong signal. We have to do what we can to reach that goal,” Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said at the start of the conference.

Norway hopes to initiate a worldwide drive against cluster bombs similar to the one banning anti-personnel mines, negotiated in Oslo in 1997.

However, key countries that did not sign up that treaty, including the United States, Russia and China, are also opposing a separate charter on cluster munitions – small bombs that are spread over a large area by air, in bombs, artillery or missiles.

“This is a critical juncture,” said Steve Goose of the Human Rights Watch Group.

“Let us hope this meeting will be remembered as the meeting where a large number of countries decided that cluster munitions are not just another weapon.”