Armenia

The Republic of Armenia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

In a statement to the convention’s intersessional meetings in April 2013, Armenia said it views the Convention on Cluster Munitions “as one of the principal instruments of the International Humanitarian Law to achieve the goal of elimination of an entire category of injurious conventional weapons” and said “[w]e highly value it as an important step to respond in a credible and efficient manner to the humanitarian challenges posed by certain advancements in military technology.”[1]

Yet the representative cited Armenia’s long-standing concern relating to “the security environment in our region” and said there was a “danger of a military imbalance, especially taking into account that Armenia’s neighboring countries possess stockpiles of cluster munitions.” He concluded, “Armenia fully supports the aims of the Convention and hopes that the circumstances will change sometime soon and a positive decision will be taken.”[2]

Armenia has consistently stated that it cannot join the Mine Ban Treaty unless Azerbaijan does so and a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is reached.[3] In March 2012, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said “We believe that the simultaneous accession of the countries of South Caucasus to the Convention will ensure its effectiveness and reciprocally reduce the security threat perception in the regional countries.”[4]

Armenia did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[5] In September 2011, Armenia participated for the first time in a meeting of the convention, when it attended the Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut as an observer, but it did not make any statement at the meeting.

Armenia attended the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012. In April 2013, Armenia participated for the first time in the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva. It made statements at both meetings.

Armenia has not joined the Mine Ban Treaty and is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Armenia declared in March 2012 and again in April 2013 that it “does not produce, export, stockpile or use cluster munitions and does not intend to do so.”[6]

Armenia has stated that it has not “encountered remnants of cluster munitions on the territory of Armenia.”[7] Submunition contamination has been identified in Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory claimed by Azerbaijan but occupied and under the control of a breakaway government since the 1988–1994 conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.[8] There are also reports of contamination in other parts of occupied Azerbaijan, adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, which are under the control of Armenian forces.[9]