On December 27, exactly six months passed since Vilnius notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations of its intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use, stockpiling and production of anti-personnel mines. In line with the procedure set out in the convention, the withdrawal took effect after the six-month period expired, BNS reported.
Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defence had previously said that once the decision entered into force, the country would begin consultations on options for purchasing or domestically producing anti-personnel mines. According to Reuters, Lithuania and Finland plan to begin manufacturing such munitions from next year for their own needs as well as for Ukraine.
Lithuanian Deputy Defence Minister Karolis Aleksa has said that “hundreds of millions of euros” are planned to be allocated for the procurement and production of mines, including anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, with orders for anti-personnel mines potentially amounting to tens of thousands of units or more.
Most European Union countries remain parties to the Ottawa Convention, while China, Russia, the United States, India and Pakistan have not joined it.
In March, the defence ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland issued a joint call to withdraw from the agreement, a position later supported by Finland. In May, Lithuania’s Seimas approved the decision to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention.
