DUTCH TO SIGN EUROPE ANTI-CLONING PROTOCOL

January 24, 1998

AMSTERDAM, Jan 24 (Reuters) -- The Dutch cabinet agreed to sign a Council of Europe protocol banning human cloning, a government statement said on Saturday.

The cabinet agreed late on Friday to sign the protocol, which became available for ratification by members of the 40-nation organisation on January 12.

The cabinet said it interpreted the protocol as banning cloning technology that led to the birth of a human being genetically identical to another one.

It was necessary to include this additional statement because the text of the protocol was open to various interpretations, the government statement said.

Last November, the Council of Europe adopted the text of the protocol, which prohibits "any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead."

The protocol, which followed the cloning of a sheep by British scientists last year, would not cover the cloning of cells or tissue for research purposes resulting in medical applications.