International control of military small arms must be tightened to stop the weapons from flowing into the hands of criminals and terrorists, a 21-nation congress said Tuesday. The weapons often fall into the hands of terrorists, drug cartels and even renegade soldiers.
Some experts say half the world's small arms transfers are illegal.
We certainly regard the meeting as a success,'' said the head of the U.S. delegation, Joseph Smaldone. Participants ranged from major Western powers to African countries recovering from civil wars and Latin American nations struggling with drug-related violence. However, key arms producers, including Russia, Israel and China, did not attend. The Oslo meeting is to be followed up by other sessions leading up to a global small arms conference in Switzerland in 2000 or 2001. Norway was among a few countries that began a drive to ban antipersonnel mines in 1996 - an effort that snowballed into a global movement, and a total ban on the weapons negotiated in Oslo last year.