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World Landmine News
TURKEY: ONLY 17,000 OF THE OVER ONE MILLION LANDMINES HAVE BEEN REMOVED - AKI
Only 17,000 landmines of the more than one million planted on Turkish soil have been removed since Turkey in 2003 signed an international treaty against landmines, according to a report published by a Turkish non-governmental organisation. According to the Istanbul-based Turkey Without Landmines Initiative last year landmines in Turkey killed 68 civilians - including 22 children - and injured 152.
Most of the landmines were planted by the military along Turkey's almost 600 kilometre-long border with Syria in an effort to prevent illegal border crossings, especially by separatist fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The compilers of the report recommend that the government immediately create an "action centre" to co-ordinate the landmine defusing process otherwise, they warned, the remaining explosives will not be removed by the deadline of 2014 as specified by the International Landmine Ban Treaty.
Turkey stopped producing and exporting landmines in 1996.
Posted: Thursday, September 14, 2006
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