Albanian heads the anti-mine conference

TIRANA, Dec. 22 – The Second Review Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of the Anti – Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Mine Ban Treaty) held in Kartagena, Columbia, from Nov. 30 until Dec. 4 unanimously appointed Gazmend Turdiu, Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, as President of the 10th Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of the Anti – Personnel Mines for the period 2010-2011.
That is an outcome due to their appraisal of Albania’s active and fruitful participation, both on the national and international scale in meeting the obligations stemming thereof, said a ministry statement.
During the Cartagena Conference, Albania said it had completed the clearance of all anti-personnel mines in the territory that it has under administration nearly a year prior to the deadline set by Article 5 of this Convention. That had enabled the restitution of the reclaimed land for the inhabitants, both for public and private use
Last October Albania announced it was free of all known mines and unexploded ordnance, after the last land mine was cleared.
Many of the explosives were allegedly planted inside Albanian territory by neighboring Serbia during the Kosovo war in 1998-1999 and FYROM in 2001, as those countries battled ethnic Albanian insurgencies. Others were planted by weapons smugglers.
Over the past decade mines and unexploded ordnance have killed 34 Albanians, a third of them children, and 238 people have been wounded.