May 29, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 23, 1429

LONDON, May 28: Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Wednesday that Britain will scrap all cluster bombs in its arsenal, in a bid to break a deadlock at ongoing negotiations in Dublin towards banning the weapons.

“We have decided we will take all our types of cluster bombs out of service,” Brown told reporters in London.

Officials from 109 countries are in talks in the Irish capital to thrash out a treaty by Friday towards wiping out the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions.

Brown said: “We have decided, after a great deal of discussion, that we can help break the log jam so that we can get international agreement that would ban cluster bombs.” He said he believed Britain’s decision would “is going to make a difference to the negotiations that are now taking place.

“I look forward to other countries following us in this action and I look forward to other countries being able to take these cluster bombs out of service,” he said.

“I think this would be a big step forward to make the world a safer place.” Britain’s armed forces currently possess two types of cluster ammunitions:the artillery-fired M85 and the M73, which is launched from helicopters.

Campaigners claim British troops used the M85 bombs in the Iraq war in 2003.

Notably absent from the Dublin conference — even in an observer capacity — are China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States, all major producers and stockpilers.

Cluster bombs, first used in World War II, open in the air and scatter smaller bombs over a wide area. Many fail to detonate on impact, making them a risk to the lives of civilians for years after their use.—AFP