Policy

The Republic of Armenia has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. In a letter to the Monitor in April 2010, Armenia stated that it “cannot become a member of the Mine Ban Treaty at this moment,” but it “supports the Treaty and values the idea of transparency and confidence-building measures.”[1] Armenia has not submitted a voluntary Article 7 transparency report.

In its April 2010 letter, Armenia did not mention consideration of the “possibility of accession,” as it did in a letter in 2009.[2] The 2010 letter reiterated that “Armenia makes it clear that it cannot sign the Treaty unless Azerbaijan agrees to do so.”[3] Armenia still views mines along the border with Azerbaijan as essential to its defense, and officials have stated that the mines will not be removed until peace is established.[4]

Officials have often said that Armenia cannot join the treaty until the territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has been solved. According to its 2010 letter, “Armenia believes that once an agreement on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is reached, a complete and safe demining of the areas affected by the conflict will become possible in cooperation with all parties concerned.”[5]

Armenia did not participate, even as an observer, at the 2014 Mine Ban Treaty Review Conference in Maputo, nor at the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018.

However, Armenia voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 73/61 on the Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, as it has in previous years.[6]

Armenia is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons. It is also not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Production, transfer, stockpile destruction, and use

The disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh is contaminated by landmines and remnants of war from the Nagorno-Karabakh War fought from 1992–1994 between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In March 2018, three deminers were killed when their vehicle hit a mine in Nagorno-Karabakh.[7] Previously, on 1 September 2017, an Armenian soldier was killed in Nagorno-Karabakh after the explosion of a landmine.[8]

Officials have said that Armenia last used antipersonnel mines in April 1994.[9] In April 2010, Armenia repeated past statements that it has never produced or exported antipersonnel mines.[10] It inherited a stockpile of mines from the Soviet Union, but its size and composition is not known. Armenia stated that stockpile information is sensitive and that “the issue to provide this kind of data is contingent on a similar level of political commitment by other parties in the region to present the same information.”[11]