Growing calls for UK to withdraw from treaty banning landmines

Calls are growing for the UK to withdraw from the treaty banning the use of landmines.

Nations in eastern Europe, including Poland and Finland, have signalled they will leave the 1997 Ottawa Treaty so they are allowed to lay mines amid an increasing threat from Russia and Belarus. The UK government remains committed to staying part of the Ottawa Treaty, but some want it to be abandoned or at least reviewed.

Politics latest: PM will speak to world leaders over the weekend In a debate in the House of Lords, several peers made the case for the UK being more open to the use of landmines, including the Duke of Wellington, former soldiers and aid workers and the grandson of prime minister Clement Attlee. Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace has also called for the UK to withdraw from the treaty.

Lord Robathan, who was an officer in the Coldstream Guards and also in the SAS before becoming a Conservative MP, recalled a vehicle he was in was hit by a mine in Iraq. The Ottawa Treaty was signed in late 1997, with the UK as one of the initial members.

Nations that are not signatories include Russia, China, Iran, India, North Korea, South Korea and the United States. According to the UN, more than 40 million mines have been destroyed since the treaty came into force and "vast" previously mined areas have been cleared.

He described the Ottawa Treaty as "window dressing" - adding that British soldiers "should have" the defence of being able to use landmines should the UK enter a war. "I have seen UK soldiers maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq in the recent past.

"This convention does nothing for them or for peace. It takes away one line of defence from our own soldiers," he said.

Lord Robathan also spoke of his work clearing landmines. The Duke of Wellington, a descendant of Arthur Wellesley who won the Battle of Waterloo, told the chamber how he was a trustee of the HALO Trust that worked with Princess Diana on de-mining.

But 25 years after the Ottawa Treaty was signed, "the military situation has changed unimaginably.