Turkey, US won't join cluster bomb ban
Friday, May 30, 2008
Such munitions are still needed, says Turkish official

ÜMÝT ENGÝNSOY
WASHINGTON - Turkish Daily News


More than 100 countries, led by European Union nations, agreed Wednesday on the draft of a treaty to ban cluster munitions, but the United States, Turkey and a number of other major military powers are boycotting the deal.

The agreement, hammered out in Ireland's capital Dublin, had been under negotiation since February 2007, and has eventually garnered the backing of 111 countries, including some of the richest and some of the poorest. But in addition to Turkey and the United States, many others, including Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and Brazil are not part of the accord.

Cluster munitions are canisters packed with many bomblets that spread over a large area when dropped from a plane or fired from the ground. The problem is that while the weapons are meant to explode on impact, they often do not. Civilians, particularly children, are often maimed or killed when they pick up unexploded bombs, sometimes years later.

The draft treaty would still leave most of the world's stockpile of cluster weapons untouched because of the dissenting military powers' opposition. But supporters of the ban say the agreement would reduce use even by non-signatory countries.

Turkey will not join the effort. "In a war against a legitimate enemy, cluster munitions remain to be the most effective weapons against area targets, and we've got a lot of these munitions in our stocks," said one Turkish official. "Unless you find a viable option to cluster munitions, you can't simply rule out their use."

Rather than fully banning these weapons, making them safer for civilians should be the real objective, said the official.

"Additional safety mechanisms could be used so that these munitions definitely explode on impact or destroy themselves shortly after hitting the ground," the official explained. "This would remove the danger for civilians."

"If you're Luxembourg and have no enemies, fine, such a ban is ideal for humanitarian purposes, but we're not living in an ideal world," said one Turkish defense analyst.



US strongly opposed:

U.S. officials said Washington would not join the process, which it though was "flawed."

"While the United States shares the humanitarian concerns of those in Dublin, cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility, and their elimination from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of our soldiers and those of our coalition partners at risk," said a Pentagon spokesman Wednesday.

"The cluster munition represents a very effective weapon to attack area targets," said one senior State Department official recently. "The fact is that area targets – troops in the open, convoys, munition depots, mobile missile launchers – are going to be a feature of future warfare, at least a future war the United States has to prepare and plan for."

While other weapons "destroy infrastructure, roads, dams and bridges, the cluster munition does not do so," said the official. "So basically every combat element in the U.S. military, every aircraft, every warship, every brigade or combat team, every Marine unit afloat have cluster munitions."

The official added, "It's not just cluster munitions. It's AK-47s (Russian-made Kalashnikov submachine guns), it's landmines, it's everything... Don't carve out one specific weapon type to the exclusion of all others. Let's address it comprehensively and holistically."

U.S. officials also say that any international effort without the participation of the major producers and users of these weapons would not be successful.

What lies ahead?

The nations accepting the treaty are due to come together in Norway's capital Oslo in December to sign the pact, which would ban the use, production and sale of cluster munitions. The treaty would not be binding for non-signatory nations.

The Dublin draft treaty sets an eight-year deadline for participant countries to destroy most of their stockpiles of cluster weapons. It also calls for nations that adopt it to provide technical, financial or material assistance for clearing up cluster munitions' remnants that remain on the territory of other states.

Britain, the United States' closest ally, dropped its opposition to some provisions and joined the draft treaty, becoming the largest military power in the world supporting the proposed ban.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article...?enewsid=105867

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Profigias,

Truth is Luxemburg may not have vast stocks of clusterbombs like we do, banning them would cost us a hell uf a lot. And then you have to look also for a suitable replacement which is not there, what can replace a cluster bomb?

i am going to change the question a bit , who is the army that can run over the turkish army which

1.member of nato
2. 2nd largest in nato in terms of numbers
3.population enough to sustain and set up occupational army
4.probably a member of EU
5. modern army equipped with western tech

And which is surrounded by

1. armenia (LOL)
2.iraq (no existent anymore)
3. syria (pants army)
4. greece (oh wait we are allies )
5. Cyprus (700.000 threating 70.000.000 sounds kinda like luxembourg here)
6. BUlgaria (they are currently into making $$$ to spend in SUV's


Now explain me who is REALLY threatening turkey

Where is Turkey borther? in the middle of Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East. oil, ethnic/religious tensions... you can add rest of the world in to your list due to different cases.

you can add them all up and still cant match one single corp of the turkish army , and how will you contribute to peace in the region , by keeping weapons ?


and btw luxemburg has some nasty neighbours too , ze germans and french are not the best history has seen (the later has nukes too)

The same questions can be directed to the US, Russia, China etc. etc. no one is lost without them.

But all of these countries have vast stocks of this ammo. So why should we waste all that? Just to please some Greenpeace hippy's who are dreaming of a world without violence? What about all the investments to fill the gap? And why not start with nuclear weapons when contribution to peace is searched so desperately?

well you changed attitude , from security reasons you went to satisying a few hippies. So whats the real reason behind your decision?

The real reason is that they are essential to our fight against PKK in northern iraq, they are cheap, we have vast stockpiles so it would be incredibly expensive to replace them, and as nutuk said, with what exactly are we supposed to replace them?

ok

not ok

noone...repeat NOONE.....defeated insurgents with cluster bombs, not even the US in their struggle against the vietnamese. Turks know it.

most of these shitty bomblets are taking toll on the CIVILIAN POPULATION, either directly or indirectly cause a lot of those fail to explode when deployed and are later on maiming kids playing with them.

those hippies as Nutuk called them, want to save innocent lives.

so the only reason Turkey needs them is to terrorize neighbouring countries, thats all

It is pretty ok actually, you are right we cant use and we dont use cluster bombs within turkey, it would be absolutely stupid to do so, but within northern iraq where the PKK control vasts amount of land and use it as a launching point to stage attacks within turkey why exactly should we not use it? If the bombs fail to go off it means that their are vast areas the PKK will think twice about going through, given that it is a vast area we need cluster bombs to cover that area while carrying out bombings and according to the PUK there are very few civilians in that area. If you play with fire you get burnt.

Second, you should have nothing but praise for turkeys recent operations within N. Iraq since you care about civlians casualities. Can you post to me how many civlians have actually been killed since the operations have begun this year? I can recall around 3 civilians. Now tell me when the americans attack fallujah how many civilians were then killed? The turkish army has done everything to prevent civilians from being killed in its recent operation but again that is not enough because deep at heart you dont give a shit and what you want is for PKK to continue being a thorn in turkey side as it suits greece interests.

thus spoke general turkkan

typing ok doesnt mean i agree , just too bored and sick to continue arguing