Due to the current Covid-19 situation, this year the intersessional meetings of the States Parties of the Ottawa Convention (Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transport of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction) are being held via visual format from June 30 to July 2, 2020.

These meetings aim to provide Member States and other stakeholders with the opportunity to present new information on progress in the implementation of the Convention, as well as on the remaining challenges in the field of mine clearance.

The programme has been modified to include a series of thematic panels, sessions for States Parties requesting extensions of their mine clearance deadlines and a session dedicated to the preparations for the Eighteenth Meeting of the States Parties (18MSP) to be held in November.

At this meeting, Bosnia and Herzegovina submitted an informal Request for an extension of the deadline for fulfilling the obligations under Article 5 of the Ottawa Convention requesting an extension until 2027 and the Request was presented by Sasa Obradovic, Director of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Center.