Jordan clears 83,000 mines on Syria border

Jordan has destroyed 83,000 out of 136,000 landmines it laid along the border with Syria in the 1970s, an official said today.

Jordan has destroyed 83,000 out of 136,000 landmines it laid along the border with Syria in the 1970s, an official said on Monday.

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"The kingdom removed 83,000 landmines on the Jordanian-Syrian border under a project that started in 2008," said Mohammed Breikat, head of the National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation.

"The project, conducted by the Norwegian People's Aid under the supervision of the NCDR, aims at clearing 10 kilometres (3.8 square miles) of land or 93 minefields," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Petra news agency.

"The land can be used for agriculture and investment."

Breikat said more than 200 people were working on the project, as he announced Japan had donated his organisation 357,000 dollars to clear the anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.

Jordan began clearing minefields as early as 1993, one year before it signed a peace treaty with Israel.

The desert kingdom then had more than 300,000 landmines strewn across its territory, most of them in the Jordan Valley next to Israel, and also near its eastern border with Iraq and northern border with Syria.

Most of the mines were laid during successive Israeli-Arab conflicts.