Downing Street Says » Cluster bombs

» Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Cluster bombs

Asked for the Government’s position on cluster munitions, the PMS replied that the Government’s position was that there were negotiations on cluster bombs underway in Dublin at the moment, and we would not want to pre-empt those. The Prime Minister had issued instructions to our negotiators in Dublin that we should work intensively to ban cluster bombs that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. We had already gone further than other permanent members of the Security Council by banning two types of cluster bombs, neither of which had a self-destruct or de-activation mechanism. The Prime Minister had asked the Ministery of Defence to assess the remaining munitions in use to ensure that there was no risk to civilians, and we were absolutely clear that our forces would always operate in strict accordance with international humanitarian law.

Asked when the Prime Minister asked the MoD to do this, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had asked the MoD to do this as part of the preparation for the negotiations that were underway in Dublin at the moment.

Asked was meant by “unacceptable harm”, the PMS replied that in a sense this was what the discussion was about in Dublin at the moment. As he had said, we had already gone further than other permanent members of the Security Council by banning two types of cluster bombs, neither of which had a self-destruct of de-activation mechanism, which he understood was one of the concerns people had about cluster bombs – their inability to self-destruct of deactivate if they did not blow up. But the Prime Minister had asked the Ministry of Defence to assess the remaining munitions to ensure there was no risk to civilians.

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Cluster bombs

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