GENEVA, Dec 6 (AFP) - The head of the International Red Cross appealed here Saturday for greater safety measures for humanitarian aid workers in conflict zones following an October bomb blast at its mission in Iraq that killed 12.
Speaking after a conference of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) here, its president Jakob Kellenberger said all the delegates had agreed that "the security of humanitarian workers is an extremely delicate problem.
"There was a strong appeal, a strong general commitment that security should be improved," he told journalists.
But the conference did not adopt new legally binding regulations.
The ICRC last month decided to close its offices in Baghdad and the southern Iraqi city of Basra temporarily following the bomb attack on its headquarters.
Among the dead in the attack were two of the agency's Iraqi staff, shattering the confidence of one of the few aid organisations to have stayed in Iraq for more than two uninterrupted decades despite repeated wars.
Asked about the current situation in Iraq, Kellenberger said: "In the present context it is more important than in the past that all actors, states but also armed groups, be reminded of the rules (of humanitarian rights), especially as far as civilian protection is concerned...."
Delegates at the conference adopted a series of recommendations and an agenda for humanitarian action, stressing protection for those affected by armed conflict, and the need to reduce the effects on vulnerable groups of natural catastrophes and diseases such as AIDS.
But it dropped a controversial clause in the original agenda envisaging supplies of syringes and condoms in jails to prevent spread of AIDS.
The United States, the Vatican and Malaysia had opposed the proposal.
The final declaration adopted said only: "States... are urged to implement policies and operational measures in prisons in order to create a safer environment and reduce the risk of transmission of HIV...."
The declaration also included a passage committing states to improve procedures for clarifying the fate of persons missing in armed conflicts and for searching for and identifying remains.
All the participants committed themselves to seek the elimination of antipersonnel mines and the conference endorsed an earlier ICRC appeal to fight bioterrorism.
"We all agreed that urgent action is required to prevent the misuse of biotechnology for hostile purposes and the erosion of the prohibitions on poisoning and the deliberate spread of disease contained in international humanitarian law," said Kellenberger.
More than 1,500 delegates representing 191 governments, 181 national Red Cross societies and the ICRC attended. The next conference will be held in Geneva in 2007.
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