Brussels (EFE).- The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, affirmed this Friday that it is up to each member state of the Alliance, individually, to decide whether to deliver cluster bombs to Ukraine, at a time when the United States is studying the possibility of providing such ammunition to Kiev.
“It is up to the individual allies to make decisions about the delivery of arms and military supplies to Ukraine and it will be up to the governments to decide, not NATO as an Alliance,” said the Norwegian politician during a press conference prior to the summit of allied leaders who is held in Vilnius next week.
No fixed position on cluster bombs
Stoltenberg stressed that NATO as an Alliance does not have a fixed position on cluster bombs because some member states have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions and others have not.
This convention, agreed in Oslo and which entered into force in 2008, prohibits the use of this type of ammunition by 111 States.
That binding treaty prohibits all types of use, production, storage, and transfer of cluster bombs. Neither Ukraine, nor Russia, nor the US are part of the international agreement.
Stoltenberg added that cluster bombs are being used in the war by both Russia and Ukraine.
“Russia uses cluster bombs in its brutal war of aggression to invade another country, while Ukraine uses them to defend itself,” he said.
Germany, against sending cluster bombs
For her part, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, spoke out this Friday against the possible delivery of cluster bombs to Ukraine.
“I have followed the information in the press and, for Germany, the Oslo treaty governs,” declared the head of German diplomacy in Vienna, before participating in a meeting on climate change of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. (OSCE).
Several international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch have denounced the use of these weapons by both sides while asking Washington not to deliver them to Ukraine. This type of bomb, launched by artillery or aviation, releases a large number of small explosive charges. that sweep a wide area and that are a threat to the civilian population.
Unexploded bombs also pose a danger after the conflict ends.
Ukraine claims that it will use these bombs against entrenched Russian troops before the advance of its forces.