NATO is to set up a special committee to study possible health risks for soldiers who served in parts of the Balkans where the alliance used depleted uranium munitions, the NATO Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, announced yesterday.
"We are going to set up a dedicated committee on depleted uranium," Lord Robertson told a press conference. "We will do everything to make sure that the relevant information is known," he said, asserting that the alliance has "nothing to hide".
Some of NATO's European members are concerned at a spate of cancer cases, some fatal, among former Balkan peacekeepers and other personnel, which they say could be linked to depleted uranium (DU) munitions used in the alliance's tank-busting attacks.
Lord Robertson described calls for an investigation into US use of DU in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 as "legitimate demands", but added that he was "confident that there is little risk in NATO ammunitions".
"I wouldn't have agreed to these ammunitions when I was minister if we knew that they would involve any health hazard. It is a proven technology and valuable on the battlefield," said Lord Robertson, who was Britain's defence minister during the Kosovo crisis.
Concerning UN complaints of NATO's failure to co-operate with investigations, he said it was only due to "bureaucratic delay, which we all regret".
He said that NATO's North Atlantic Council, the alliance's highest decision-making body made up of the permanent ambassadors in Brussels, had agreed to a request from Italy to provide maps of where DU ammunition had been used.
The council also decided to act as a hub for all national reports into the use of DU, and also offered assistance to the UN Environment Programme if investigators - currently in Kosovo - are also sent to Bosnia. A definitive UNEP report on Kosovo is expected in March.
US fighter jets fired some 31,000 DU rounds during the NATO air war against Yugoslavia, according to the Pentagon. Another 10,800 rounds were fired between 1994 and 1995 in Bosnia, where many of the afflicted peacekeepers were stationed. Seven Italian soldiers and one aid worker, five Belgian peacekeepers, two Dutch nationals, two Spaniards, two Portuguese and a Czech have died after tours of duty in the Balkans, many from leukaemia and other cancers.
Bosnia's central government urged NATO yesterday to provide more information on the depleted uranium munitions it used during its intervention in the country, Bosnian radio reported. The council of ministers is made up of representatives of the country's two entities - the Serbs' Republika Srpska (RS) and the Muslim-Croat Federation.
The council also decided to set up a team to deal with the issue, the radio said.
Earlier yesterday, German peacekeepers said they had detected a "certain" level of radiation emitted by munitions found near Sarajevo and believed to have been fired during NATO air strikes, but could not confirm the presence of depleted uranium.