Govt Urged To Consider Halting Saudi Arms Sales

Members of an influential parliamentary committee have called on the Government to consider suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia following claims the kingdom and its allies have broken international humanitarian law by bombing civilians in Yemen.

The International Development Committee, which has six Tories and five from other parties on it, was dismissive of the British Government’s claims that it had "looked at every allegation of breach of international humanitarian law, and we have found no evidence of breach of international humanitarian law".

It also expressed concern that the Foreign Secretary was "satisfied that all extant licences for the export of arms to Saudi Arabia are compliant with the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria".

Britain has exported billions of pounds worth of arms and materiel to Saudi Arabia and her allies fighting against Shia Houthi rebels and al Qaeda in Yemen.

Human rights groups have been arguing for months that the use of British-made and supplied weapons against civilian targets could make the United Kingdom complicit in war crimes.

The Government has insisted that no evidence for such alleged crimes exists.

But after Sky News revealed that between six and 10 British experts were working in the Saudi headquarters, and helping with targeting in Yemen, the Ministry of Defence admitted British military staff were helping with logistics on resupply of bombs from British stocks.

The MoD also insisted that the British team was only in Saudi Arabia on a "training mission".

The committee said: "The evidence we have received, from humanitarian actors operating on the ground in Yemen and respected human rights organisations, including UN-commissioned evidence, unanimously suggested that humanitarian law is being breached."

It went on to say that while all sides in the conflict had been responsible for breaking humanitarian law, the British government had insisted that the Saudis investigate themselves.

"We remain unconvinced that Saudi Arabia is best placed to conduct investigations into reports of IHL (international humanitarian law) abuses by the Saudi-led Coalition," it said.

But most damaging for British exports, and for Britain’s rapidly diminishing place in the Gulf, where it was once pre-eminent, was the committee’s suggestion that the Committees on Arms Export Controls should consider "the case for suspending UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia until there is evidence that there is no clear risk that arms exported from the UK might be used in the commission of a serious violation of IHL" in Yemen.

The suspension of arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia would be a major blow to bilateral relations.

But these relations are also becoming grit in the shoes of the British cabinet which has shown a meandering approach to Middle Eastern strategy anyway.