Poland withdraws from treaty banning antipersonnel mines

Poland has officially left the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use of antipersonnel mines

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland will use antipersonnel as well as anti-tank land mines to defend its eastern border against the growing threat from Russia, Poland's deputy defense minister told The Associated Press on Friday as the country officially left an international convention banning the use of the controversial weapons.

The 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, prohibits signatories from keeping or using antipersonnel mines, which can last for years and are known for having caused large-scale suffering among civilians in former conflict zones in countries including Cambodia, Angola and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Poland, which ratified the document in 2012 and completed the destruction of its domestic anti-personnel mine stockpile in 2016, withdrew from the treaty on Friday and says it plans to renew manufacturing weapons.

“These mines are one of the most important elements of the defense structure we are constructing on the eastern flank of NATO, in Poland, on the border with Russia in the north and with Belarus in the east,” Paweł Zalewski, Poland's deputy defense minister, said.

He said Poland needed to defend itself against Russia, a country which “has very aggressive intentions vis a vis its neighbors” and which itself never committed to the international land mine ban treaty.