MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Anglo-Argentine agreement on mines clearance.

Britain and Argentina have at last agreed formally to go ahead with a joint study to find out whether and how the sixteen- thousand mines left behind in 101 minefields since the 1982 Falklands Conflict can be removed.

The two governments y exchanged notes (on Thursday, 11th October) to activate the long-standing proposal for a feasibility study by a British-Argentine working party, made up of diplomats and military experts. The new head of the Atlantic and Oceans section of the Overseas Territory Department, Mr Alan Penrith, will be the senior Foreign Office official on the working party.

There will be two project managers, a British official who will oversee the technical task and an Argentine who will be responsible for the budget, as Argentina has agreed to pay for removal of the mines laid by their invasion forces. This was a commitment of the former Menem Administration assumed by the De La Rua Government

The cost is estimated at more than 250 million dollars ( over 160-million pounds). The Argentine official for Falklands affairs, Susana Ruiz Cerruiti, says : "Argentina will pay whatever it costs to remove the mines planted by Argentine troops. Removal of British mines will be at British expense". In fact only one British mine is unaccounted for, because it has shifted from its original position.

Impetus from Ottawa Treaty

Delay in tackling the mines problem has resulted not just from the technical difficulty of finding a foolproof method of detecting and removing them, especially in the soft peat terrain, but also from the sovereignty dispute . An international accord on mines clearance, the international 1997 Ottawa Treaty, lays the responsibility for removing mines on the country with "territorial rights", which is complicated by Argentina's sovereignty claim. It has been agreed that the sovereignty should be set aside so that it does not delay the mines issue.

The Ottawa Treaty requires removal of mines by the year 2009 unless there is good reason for not doing so. The 1999 Anglo-Argentine agreement confirmed co-operation on the problem, declaring: "The two Governments will continue to work together to evaluate the feasibility and cost of clearing the land mines".

The issue has been previously examined in visits to Buenos Aires by the British Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, and by a four-man British Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence delegation last year.

The Falklands Government tak