The text of a landmark international convention to ban cluster bombs was agreed Wednesday by delegates from more than 100 countries meeting in Dublin, an Irish foreign ministry spokeswoman told AFP.
After 10 days of often tense debate at Croke Park stadium in the Irish capital, diplomats agreed the wording of a wide-ranging pact that would completely end the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions by its signatories.
It also provides for the welfare of victims and the clearing of areas contaminated by unexploded cluster bombs. "The text has been agreed by all delegates," the spokeswoman said. The treaty requires the destruction of stockpiled munitions within eight years.
Britain was widely cited by campaigners as being at the forefront of a group of states seeking to water down the treaty. But in a dramatic move Wednesday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced in London that Britain would withdraw all its cluster bombs from service in a bid to break the deadlock in the Dublin talks.
"We have decided we will take all our types of cluster bombs out of service," Brown said. "I believe that is going to make a difference to the negotiations that are now taking place."
The draft treaty agreed in Dublin read: "Each state party undertakes never under any circumstances to:
"(a) Use cluster munitions;
"(b) Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions;
"(c) Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a state party under this convention."
China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States - all major producers and stockpilers - are absent from the Dublin talks. Much of the wrangling at Croke Park focused on what signatories could and could not do in joint operations with states still using cluster bombs.