DUSHANBE, December 15, Asia-Plus – A Japanese delegation led Kideki Uyama, head of the Section for Central Asia and Caucasus, Europe Department, Japan’s MFA, yesterday visited Tajik Mine Action Cell (TMAC) in Dushanbe.
The TMAC director Jonmahmad Rajabov said in an interview with Asia-Plus that meeting had focused on assistance to Tajikistan in clearing mine-strewn areas in the republic. According to him, during the meeting it was noted that the Japanese delegation intends to help Tajikistan obtain a demining machine (wheel/tracked mechanical mine clearing machine controlled by transmitter).
“Under a document that was recently signed at a meeting within the framework of the “Central Asia plus Japan” Dialogue in Dushanbe the issue of providing assistance to Tajikistan in carrying out mine-clearing operations is one of priorities of cooperation,” the TMAC director aid, that the demining machine will considerably improve the demining operations.
Rajabov also noted that some 280,000 square meters of land had been cleared this year and more than 1,100 anti-personnel mines 56 unexploded ordnances had been destructed. “Last year, we cleared 130,000 square meters of land and discovered 1,357 AP mines and unexploded ordnances,” Rajabov noted.
According to him, five persons have been killed and 12 others have been seriously injured by landmine explosions this year.
AP mines and other explosive devices are believed to remain scattered over an area of 25 million square meters in Tajikistan. Over the past three years, demining teams have cleared 465 square meters of land in the country.
Most land mines in Tajikistan were laid during the devastating five-year civil war, which ended in 1997. In many areas the mines still pose a deadly threat as well as a major impediment to effective land use.
Additional mines were laid along the Tajik-Uzbek border by the authorities in Tashkent in the late 1990s.
Tajikistan signed the Convention on the Prohibition on the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on their Destruction (the Ottawa Convention) in 2000. All signatory states undertook to ensure the destruction of all anti-personnel land mines they possess, as soon as possible but no later than 10 years after signing the convention. In the case of Tajikistan, this means that the country should be mine-free by 2010.
