Trump administration eliminates restrictions on US military use of landmines

The Trump administration on Friday cancelled an Obama-era policy that prohibited the use of landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula and committed the US military to destroy stockpiles of the explosives.

White House said that the action was taken as the policy might act as "a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries", Sputnik reported.

"The Department of Defence has determined that restrictions imposed on American forces by the Obama administration's policy could place them at a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries," read the statement from the Office of the Press Secretary.

"The President is unwilling to accept this risk to our troops," it added.

In 2014, the Obama administration restricted the use of landmines in a bid to align with the 1997 Ottawa Convention, an international treaty prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines.

The convention called for the destroying stockpiles and prohibiting the use of anti-personnel landmines outside the Korean Peninsula. The Obama administration policy also called for the US military to "not assist, encourage, or induce anyone outside the Korean Peninsula to engage in activity prohibited by the Ottawa Convention.