Poland to withdraw from the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention

The Polish Sejm voted for a bill to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of anti-personnel mines.

RMF 24 writes about this.

The decision was supported by 413 deputies, opposed by 15, and three more abstained.

Before the vote, Minister of National Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysh stated that withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention was crucial for security in the region.

As he noted, the initiative to withdraw from the convention was submitted at the request of Poland and partners from the Baltic countries and Finland.

Poland signed the convention on December 4, 1997, but ratified it only in 2012.

Previously, decisions to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention were already made in Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

• The Ottawa Convention was adopted on December 3, 1997, and entered into force on March 1, 1999. Ukraine ratified it on December 27, 2005, becoming a party on June 1, 2006. At the time of signing, Ukraine had the fifth largest arsenal of anti-personnel mines in the world, behind only China, Russia, the United States, and Pakistan.

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