By KUNA,
London : The British Government is preparing to scrap Britain’s entire arsenal of cluster bombs in the face of a growing clamour against weapons that have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent civilians it was disclosed Wednesday.
British officials are paving the way for the unexpected and radical step at talks in Dublin, in the Irish Republic, on an international treaty aimed at a worldwide ban on the bombs, the Guardian newspaper said.
Well-placed sources have made clear that despite opposition from the military, the UK Government is prepared to get rid of the cluster munitions in Britain’s armoury: the lsraeli-designed M85 artillery weapon used during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and in attacks on Lebanon two years ago, and the M73, part of a weapons system for Apache helicopters.
“The Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) is very much behind this process and wants us to sign the treaty,” a senior Foreign Office source said.
Ireland, which is chairing the talks, wants a treaty text to be adopted tonight.
“If we sign up to the treaty we will lose the M85 and the M73,” the source said.
While the British Government appears happy for UK forces to get rid of their M85 weapons immediately, it wants a “phasing out period” for its M73s, the paper added.
The agreement, expected to be confirmed today, ends a long-running British Government dispute which has pitted the Ministry of Defence against the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, it said.
The Ministry of Defence says the number of cluster bombs in the armoury is “operationally sensitive” but concedes that decommissioning them will cost tens of millions of pounds.
Cluster weapons are highly controversial because they scatter small “bomblets” over a wide area. Many of them do not explode on impact and are activated later by civilians.
They caused more than 200 civilian casualties in the year after the Lebanon ceasefire, and more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon system.