EU condemns U.S. decision on anti-personnel land mines

This photo shows the Berlaymont Building, the European Commission headquarters, in Brussels, Belgium. (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng)

The EU said U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to cancel a policy restricting the U.S. military's use of anti-personnel land mines was "completely unacceptable".

BRUSSELS, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) said on Tuesday that the decision by the United States administration to re-authorise the use of anti-personnel land mines by U.S. military forces outside of the Korean Peninsula "undermines the global norm against anti-personnel mines -- a norm that has saved tens of thousands of people in the past twenty years."

A spokesperson of the European External Action Service (EEAS) said in a statement that the majority of mine victims are children, and the conviction that these weapons are incompatible with International Humanitarian Law has led 164 States to join the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, including all member states of the EU.

The White House announced on Friday that President Donald Trump had canceled an Obama-era policy restricting the use of anti-personnel land mines, drawing sharp rebukes.

The EEAS said that "their use anywhere, anytime and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union," adding that "the re-authorisation of the use of anti-personnel mines is not only a direct contradiction to these actions but also negatively affects the international rules-based order."