Is all overthis.
DUBLIN (Reuters) – The United States is trying to bully its allies into weakening a treaty banning cluster bombs, Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for leading a campaign against landmines, said on Friday.
Representatives of more than 100 nations are working on an agreement against the use of cluster munitions, although the United States, China and Russia are not participating. Opponents say cluster bombs are unreliable and indiscriminate.
The United States said on Wednesday the treaty could jeopardize U.S. participation in joint peacekeeping and disaster relief operations by “criminalizing” military operations between countries that signed the ban and those that did not.
Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize together with her International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said genuine peacekeeping operations backed by the United Nations would not be affected by a global ban on cluster bombs.
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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon earlier week told delegates in Dublin, where the treaty is being finalized, that the use, development, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs should be prohibited.