Germany extending Saudi arms freeze to end of March
Germany said on Wednesday it would extend until the end of March a unilateral halt on arms shipments to Saudi Arabia imposed due to concerns about its role in Yemen’s war and the killing of a journalist, stretching the embargo beyond a March 9 deadline.
Germany’s coalition government is under mounting pressure from Britain and France, its partners in European defense projects including supplies of military equipment, to lift the ban or risk damage to commercial credibility, Reuters reported.
Already worried about Saudi involvement in Yemen’s ruinous conflict, Germany’s coalition government agreed to ban future arms sales to Riyadh in November after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi agents in Istanbul. It also temporarily halted deliveries of previously approved kit.
“We in the government have decided to extend the export ban until the end of March, and we have done this with an eye on developments in Yemen,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Berlin. “Not only will there not be any permits issued until the end of this month, but products with permits already granted will also not be delivered,” he added.
Maas is the first government official to publicly confirm the extension, which was first reported last week.
The issue is dividing Germany’s ruling coalition, with Maas’s Social Democrats, junior partners to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, reluctant to alienate voters who are generally skeptical about arms sales and military spending.
As well as the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Riyadh’s role in the Yemen war has also increased opposition in Germany to arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh leads a coalition invading the impoverished country. The war began in March 2015 to restore a former Yemeni government after it resigned and fled to Riyadh.
The conflict has killed over 15,000 civilians and sparked a cholera epidemic and humanitarian crisis.
Germany’s decision to unilaterally halt all shipments of military equipment to Saudi Arabia has brought long-standing differences between Berlin and its European partners over arms controls to a tipping point. The move has put a question mark over billions of euros of military orders, including a 10-billion-pound ($13.13 billion) deal to sell 48 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Riyadh, and has prompted some firms such as Airbus to strip German components from some of their products.
Western countries have provided arms and intelligence to the Arab states in the alliance, but have shown increasing reservations about the conflict since the murder of the Us-based Saudi dissident journalist at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October.