Afp, Washington

US President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday lifted US restrictions on landmines, saying new technology made them safer, outraging campaigners for the abolition of the explosives that maim thousands of civilians each year.

In the latest reversal of a policy of his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump gave the green light to a new generation of “non-persistent” landmines that can be switched off or destroyed remotely rather than staying active in the ground forever.

Obama in 2014 banned the use of anti-personnel landmines with the exception, under pressure from military planners, of the Korean peninsula where the explosives dot the last Cold War frontier with North Korea.

The White House said the US military will now be free to deploy landmines around the world “in exceptional circumstances.”

In rescinding the White House directive, the Trump administration said policy would now be set by the Pentagon, which said it was still prohibiting traditional landmines that cannot be turned off or destroyed remotely.

The new mines are set to self-destruct within 30 days but can be destroyed in as little as two hours if necessary, Vic Mercado, the Pentagon official in charge of the policy, told reporters.

More than 160 countries, including most of the Western world, are party to the 1999 Ottawa Convention that aims to eliminate anti-personnel mines. A study found that 6,897 people worldwide were killed or injured by mines or leftover explosives from war in 2018.