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Tuesday, 09 February 2021 (YJC)_Foreign minister says Britain will continue to assess issue according to ‘strict licensing criteria’.
British ministers have refused to join the US in suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia for offensive use in war-torn Yemen, saying the UK makes its own decisions about selling weapons.
The US president, Joe Biden, announced the suspension last week, meeting a longstanding campaign pledge.
On Monday, the UK Foreign Office minister, James Cleverly, said he had noted the US review, but said British arms sales licences were issued with great care to ensure they did not lead to any breach of humanitarian law.
He added: “The decisions the US takes on matters of arms sales are decisions for the US. The UK takes its own arms export responsibilities very seriously, and we continue to assess all arms export licences in accordance with strict licensing criteria.” Saudi Arabia represented 40% of the volume of UK arms exports between 2010 and 2019.
Speaking in the Commons, Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the defence committee, urged the UK “to align itself fully with its closest security ally and end similar arms exports connected to the war … The US reset is very much to be welcomed and poses our first big test as to what global Britain means in practice.”
The US suspension of arms sales was designed to create the conditions for peace talks, Ellwood said.
The shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, told MPs “the UK arms trading and technical support sustains the war in Yemen … The US decision on arms sales leaves the UK dangerously out of step with our allies and increasingly isolated.”
Since the announcement last Thursday, the Biden administration has released few details on what support to Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces in Yemen it plans to end – or how it will differentiate it from other US assistance and arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
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