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Uzbekistan has not signed the Mine Ban Treaty. Uzbekistan attended the early treaty preparatory meetings in 1997, but only as an observer, and it did not endorse the pro-treaty Brussels Declaration in June 1997. At the regional conference on landmines in Turkmenistan that month, the Uzbekistan representative stated only that the government was carefully studying the issue.[1] It did not attend the Oslo negotiations nor the Ottawa signing conference. However, Uzbekistan did vote for the 1996 UNGA Resolution 51/45S urging states to vigorously pursue an international agreement banning antipersonnel landmines, and for the 1997 UNGA Resolution 52/38A supporting the December treaty signing. It was absent for the 1998 UNGA resolution vote. Uzbekistan is a state party to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), but has not yet ratified the 1996 amended Protocol II on landmines. The International Committee of the Red Cross sponsored a conference on international humanitarian law in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1997, at which the CCW and landmines were widely discussed.[2]
Uzbekistan is not considered to have a mine problem.[3] It is not known if mines were laid on the border during the time of the former Soviet Union. Uzbekistan is not believed to have produced or exported antipersonnel landmines, but there are no formal restrictions in place which would bar future production or exports. It likely inherited stockpiles of APMs from the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan is not known to have contributed to any international mine action programs.
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[1] Communication from ICBL representative to the Turkmenistan conference, June 1997.
[2] ICRC, Annual Report 1997.
[3] U.S. State Department, Hidden Killers, December 1994, p. 24.
