Annual “To Walk the Earth in Safety” (TWEIS) Report

THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.

MODERATOR:  Good afternoon and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center’s briefing to highlight the annual To Walk the Earth in Safety report, which you have in front of you.  You can also access it on our website, www.state.gov.  My name is Zina Wolfington and I’m the moderator for this briefing.  This briefing is on the record.  We will post the transcript of this briefing on our website, fpc.state.gov.  

For the journalists joining us on Zoom, please take a moment now to rename yourself with your name, outlet, and country.  And I’m very pleased to introduce today Dr. Bonnie Jenkins, our Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security.  Ambassador Jenkins would have to leave shortly after delivering the opening remarks.  And we also have here with us today Karen Chandler, the director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, who is prepared to take your questions.

And with that, it is my great pleasure to welcome Under Secretary Jenkins. 

UNDER SECRETARY JENKINS:  Thank you very much for your kind introduction, Zina.  I have the pleasure of presenting the 23rd edition of the Walk the Earth in Safety – or TWEIS, as we say – the annual report highlighting the accomplishments of the United States conventional weapons destruction programs worldwide.  This report, generated by the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, highlights the United States’ continuing accomplishments as the world’s single-largest financial supporter of conventional weapons destruction.  And here I want to present the report.  

Not only does the report showcase the critical work the United States is doing in humanitarian demining, but much more importantly, it highlights how these programs are having a direct impact on people all around the world.  

I’d also like to take a moment to mention the obvious.  It’s clear to everyone here that we are living at an incredibly difficult time, an incredibly challenging moment, whether that’s in Ukraine or Gaza, Haiti or Sudan.  Now, I’ve been at the Department of State for several years, and I’ve always been passionate about humanitarian demining, because it brings people together like no other issue does.  It represents the very best of American diplomacy, demonstrating that while we must contend with the world as it is, we must also seize opportunities to move the world closer to what it should be.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a rice farmer in Laos, a child giving – a child going to school in Ukraine, or a religious minority in Iraq.  We will not stop working until all people can walk the Earth in safety.  

It is imperative we continue to highlight Russia’s horrific actions in Ukraine, a country that continues its fight of freedom following Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion.  As of September 2023, the Government of Ukraine has estimated that almost 43 million acres of its territory may have explosive hazards.  This is an area larger than the state of Illinois.  This includes over 6 million acres of farmland, which feeds approximately 81 million people globally.  Russia’s brutal invasion is thus worsening the global food crisis.  

That is a staggering number with regional and global implications on migration, food security, and global health.  This contamination caused by Russia has hampered the productive use of the land, which has deprived Ukraine and millions of people around the world of a significant portion of Ukraine’s once bountiful harvests of wheat and other vital grains.  

From FY04 to FY28*, the United States invested more than $263.5 million in Ukraine for humanitarian demining and battle area clearance.  In FY23 alone, the Department of State’s conventional weapons destruction program invested more than $90 million in Ukraine to support a range of work, from building local demining capacity, clearance, and risk education, to preventing tragic accidents.  

Ukraine will recover from this senseless war, but it will take many years and all of our partners and allies coordinating and collaborating to get it across the finish line.  The global economy and, most importantly, the Ukrainian people count on it.  

If you take away one thing from this briefing, I hope it would be this:  The United States has provided tangible results through its conventional weapons destruction assistance to more than 125 countries and areas since 1993.  In Fiscal Year 2023 alone, the United States has assisted over 80 countries and areas around the world.  

Our conventional weapons destruction program advances both global and U.S. national security at the same time.  One good example of this is the Man-Portable Air Defense Systems Task Force, or MTF, which works closely with international partners to safeguard global aviation by preventing man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, from being obtained by criminals and terrorists.  To date, the MTF has destroyed over 43,000 MANPADS and similar missiles, making the skies safer to encourage economic growth from around the world. 

Even in areas where it will be decades before the land is clear of explosive hazards, our programs, through the work of our implementing partners, provide explosive ordnance risk education to communicate polluted – by communities polluted by landmines and other hidden killers.  These educational programs warn about the specific explosive risks that endanger communities and that prevent people from living in or returning to their homes and lands safely.  

The accomplishments in Fiscal Year 2023 are due to close collaboration of U.S. Government agencies.  The Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Agency for International Development worked together with a variety of partners to reduce excess small arms and light weapons stockpiles, implement best practices for properly securing and storing conventional weapons, and carry out humanitarian mine action programs.  For example, in Fiscal Year 2023 alone, the United States cleared 191 million square meters of land, the equivalent of Illinois and Indiana combined; delivered explosive ordnance risk education in person to over 4 million people, similar to the population of Panama, and reached millions more through social media; and cleared or destroyed more than 34,000 landmines.  

Conventional weapons destruction is a key component of U.S. diplomatic outreach to partner countries.  The United States investments in landmine and unexploded ordnance clearance, survivors’ assistance, explosive ordnance risk education, and physical security and stockpile management foster and deepen relationships based on saving lives and improving regional security and local stability.  

Since 1993 we have invested over $5 billion in these programs, which have had a profound impact on the individual and in village – and collectively on a community recovering from conflict.  The metrics listed in this report are not just a static – statistic to us but the story of changed lives.  This work is made possible by the generosity of the American taxpayer and the bipartisan support from Congress as well as the hard and often dangerous work of our implementing partners.

Now Karen Chandler, the director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement – and I thank you and your office for all this work that you’re doing – the office that produces this report as well – will take your questions.  I want to thank you all for attending this very important event today.  Thank you very much.

MODERATOR:  Thank you for your remarks and for your time, Under Secretary Jenkins.  Now I would like to open it up for questions.  A reminder for journalists joining via Zoom:  Please be sure your screen name includes your name, outlet, and country.  To ask a question, click on the raised hand icon to indicate you have a question.  We will start with questions in the room.  Please, Dima.

QUESTION:  With Ukraine.  Dmytro Anopchenko, Ukrainian television correspondent.  A lot of program of this support provided to Ukraine, but the U.S. Government were affected by this congressional delay.  What about the demining programs?  Do you still have the budget for them?  

MS CHANDLER:  We do, and thank you for that question.  We still are able to continue our programs through the coming year and actually have planned for further out as well.  We had money in the supplemental request for this national security supplemental to which you’re referring for demining, and we are still hopeful that that supplemental request will be approved.  If it is not, then we have contingency plans to be able to continue our programs at some level, although it will not be able to be at the full level.  Right now we’re still able to continue planning our teams that are out in the field through at least the end of 2024 and well into 2025.  

Whether or not the supplemental gets passed will affect that in the future, but we also have the FY24 budget that was just passed by Congress to figure out how we can move things around in that budget to continue sustaining the program for Ukraine.  It’s been a tremendously successful program for us.  We really believe in the results that we are achieving, so we want to be able to continue that program.  

I think one of the things that the under secretary stressed was that there was tremendous contamination in the farmland, and one of the priorities that we have is demining agricultural sites.  One of the things we’re very proud of this year was being able to stand up about 90 new contractor and NGO demining teams to help the Government of Ukraine and also training about 500 Government of Ukraine deminers as well.  

So we are dramatically increasing this capacity and the ability of the Government of Ukraine to take on this work by themselves in the future so that they’re not reliant on international partners, but of course we still want to be able to sustain our effort and continue that for as long as possible.  

MODERATOR:  Please.

QUESTION:  From Yonhap News Agency in South Korea.  Do you have any understanding or assessment on North Korean stockpiles of aging conventional weapons and risks associated with those stockpiles, and if you have any thought given to any way to address those concerns?

MS CHANDLER:  Yeah, we – I don’t have information on North Korean stockpiles.  We have put a tremendous amount of effort into doing different demining activities and unexploded ordnance removal throughout the Pacific and particularly in Southeast Asia, but as pertains to the stockpile particularly in DPRK I do not have information on that.

One of the things that we require in order to have a demining program in any country is great cooperation with the host government, and that is something that obviously with the DPRK we do not have.  

QUESTION:  (Off-mike.)

MS CHANDLER:  I wouldn’t want to speculate on what causes that, but I do know that one of the things that’s required in order to have a successful program is solid cooperation with the host government.

MODERATOR:  Please.

QUESTION:  (Inaudible) about Iraq, you mentioned that you pretty much focused on the mines that planted during the ISIS war, but we know that the Iraq and the Kurdistan region, according to the international landmine monitor, are the world’s most contaminated country by extent of the landmines.  And this is a legacy from the Iran-Iraq War and then to the Gulf War, then the U.S. invasion to Iraq, then later and lastly the ISIS-occupied area.  Are you just focusing on that area that occupied by ISIS, or there are sole programs and you are working with the Kurdistan Regional Government to destroy the landmines on the border of Iran and also to the poorer areas that people are meeting them on their farmlands which contaminated by the landmines?

MS CHANDLER:  Yeah, great question.  Thank you.  So our assistance to Iraq in the past year was about $40 million just in FY23 alone, Fiscal Year 2023, and that assistance goes throughout the whole 

country of Iraq.  We do talk a lot about the work that we have done to remove IEDs that were emplaced by ISIS, just because that is a major impediment to the country’s recovery and it’s a major impediment to infrastructure progress and people returning to their homes.  So we want to be able to address those things.

But we definitely do have – we do have assistance that we’re providing in the Kurdistan region as well.  We work closely with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government through their mine action center to determine what are the priority areas that need to be demined.  So we’re able to work with the Iraqi Government and their mine action center, also with what we call the IKMAA, the Iraqi Kurdistan mine action center – mine action authority.  So we work with them to determine what are the (inaudible) or landmines or unexploded ordnance.

QUESTION:  (Inaudible) in the Fiscal Year 2023 for Iraq and the Kurdistan region of Iraq?

MS CHANDLER:  No, we do not separate that out.

MODERATOR:  Yes, please.

QUESTION:  Hi, my name is Leah Griffith with a Japanese newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun.  My question is:  China has also begun engaging in international humanitarian demining under its Global Security Initiative and has carried out some joint demining operations in ASEAN countries.  As the U.S. and China contest for influence in the Global South, how do you view these efforts?

MS CHANDLER:  Great.  So we don’t view that as a contest.  The United States remains the world’s largest single financial contributor to mine action throughout the world.  We’ve contributed over $5 billion since 1993.  We do humanitarian mine action and unexploded ordnance removal because it is the right thing to do and it is the smart thing to do for national security.  We are not doing it to vie for influence over another country in a region.  I can’t speak to what China’s motivations are, but I can tell you with certainty that for the United States, we do it because we want to enable economic prosperity, we want to enable access to water and food security and allow people to return to their homes and use the land productively, because that helps the planet.

MODERATOR:  Now I will turn to Zoom.  Alex, please unmute yourself.

QUESTION:  Hey, Zina.  Thank you so much for doing this, and I appreciate the speakers for their time.  My name is Alex Raufoglu from news agency Turan.  I have two quick questions, if I may.  The question was asked about Ukraine.  I was wondering how much of Russian actions should be a part of the discussion when addressing Ukraine’s demining issue.

And a quick one on Azerbaijan:  I see in the charts that Azerbaijan received 2.2 million from FY23.  I know that you guys announced in September 2020 after war that you would fund 2 millions, I think, for demining in the region.  I think none of them went to Armenia.  Am I right?  And when I look at the chart, I see there’s a note there that due to administrative issues, no events were executed in Azerbaijan, but training, travel funds were provided.  Can you please unpack that for us?  What do you mean by due to administrative issues?

And finally, with the summit going on in Brussels involving Armenia and Azerbaijan, how much do you think landmines and unexploded ordnance remain an obstacle for the future developments of the wider region, South Caucasus?  When the countries point at each other due to conflicts, we often forget the elephant in the room, which is Russia, that has been providing mines to both countries.  How much this is part of the discussion, again, when it comes to accountability?  Thank you so much.

MS CHANDLER:  Okay, let me see if I can remember all three of those questions.  Turning first to your question on Azerbaijan – so we do have a $2 million earmark from Congress to provide assistance to areas affected by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and so that is split evenly between areas that are on – that are contested, I would say, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Azerbaijan and Armenia.  When Azerbaijan did its military action in the summer of 2023, then those activities in Azerbaijan had to be suspended in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.  At this moment, we are hoping that both sides will come to the table and that we will be able to continue that in the future, but right now those activities have been suspended in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.

Turning to Russian responsibility in Ukraine, we absolutely do hold Russia responsible for the contamination completely in Ukraine.  There is just enormously disruptive statistics about what level of contamination the country has.  The Ukrainian Government is saying that approximately one-third of the country is contaminated.  There are at least 25,000 square kilometers of agricultural land that have been contaminated, and so as Under Secretary Jenkins mentioned, that affects 81 million people globally in terms of the global food supply.  Russia is responsible for that contamination because of its unjust, unprovoked, and illegal invasion of Ukraine, so absolutely in terms of accountability we 100 percent hold Russia responsible.

MODERATOR:  Any other questions?  I don’t see any, so with this, this ends the Q&A session, and I would like to give special thanks to both our briefers for sharing their time with us today and to all the FPC journalists who joined us today.  This concludes today’s briefing.  Thank you.