MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru to ask 3 more years to complete mine clearance

Peru will request before the Ottawa Convention an extension, until 2012, for the clearance of antipersonnel mines from its territory given the impossibility to comply with the current deadline of 2009, announced Peruvian Deputy Foreign Affairs minister Gonzalo Gutierrez.

"Lack of infrastructure and the high costs involved in mine sweeping have forced a serious delay in the Peruvian timetable, which is the reason for the extension request to 2012", said Gutierrez quoted by the regional press agency Andina. In Peru antipersonnel mines are located mostly surrounding high tension pylons and date back two decades in the height of the fight against the Maoist armed group Shinning Path which caused at least 60.000 deaths. Dynamiting pylons to leave the main Peruvian cities without energy was one of the most frequent attacks by the terrorist group between 1980 and 1990. Gutierrez revealed that there are no antipersonnel mines along the Peruvian border with Chile, although he admitted that they do exist to the north next to Ecuador in several areas where the armed conflict between both countries took place in 1995. However these are being cleared with international cooperation and should be in time for the international timetable established by the Ottawa convention.