Lithuania will become the first country in the European Union to officially leave a multilateral arms regulation agreement when it withdraws on March 6 from the international treaty prohibiting the use of cluster munitions, citing a heightened security threat.
Since the United Nations was created 80 years ago there have been just five formal withdrawals from such multilateral treaties, but three of those — all by Russia — have come since 2021, according to an AFP analysis of the U.N. disarmament office registry.
Lithuania's controversial move comes at a time of heightened tensions in international relations over its neighbor Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with several countries criticizing disarmament treaties.
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