Denmark has stopped selling weapons to Riyadh in response to the assassination of prominent Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the regime’s bombing campaign in Yemen.
“With the continued deterioration of the already terrible situation in Yemen and the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, we are now in a new situation,” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said in a statement on Thursday.
Samuelsen said the decision was taken following a series of meetings with EU counterparts earlier this week.
“Denmark already has a very restrictive policy in this area, but I hope that the Danish decision will generate further momentum and induce more EU member states to support a tougher sets of EU rules on this,” said Samuelsen.
The suspension also includes some dual-use technologies, a reference to materials that might have military applications.
The European Parliament (EP) said last week that the European Union’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia are stoking the deadly war on Yemen, calling for sanctions on the countries that refuse to respect the EU’s rules on weapons sales.
Calls for a suspension of arms sales to Riyadh and its allies have increased, especially after the killing of Khashoggi in Turkey last month, which is blamed on the highest levels of the kingdom.
Since Khashoggi’s murder, the EU parliament has passed two resolutions urging limits on arms sales and strengthening checks. The calls are non-binding.
According to the EU’s annual report on weapons exports, the bloc is the second largest arms supplier in the world after the United States, exporting over a quarter of all global arm.
According to figures compiled by leading online news outlet Middle East Eye, European countries have approved arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE worth more than $86.7 billion since 2015.
Many governments have promised to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia, but only Germany has suspended its sales until clear explanations are made about the murder. The UK, France and Spain have all signaled that they will continue business as usual.
According to figures compiled by leading online news outlet Middle East Eye, European countries have approved arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE worth more than $86.7 billion since 2015.
Many governments have promised to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia, but only Germany has suspended its sales until clear explanations are made about the murder. The UK, France and Spain have all signaled that they will continue business as usual.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday that Paris would decide very soon to impose sanctions on individuals linked to the murder of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month.
Saudi Arabia launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power.
The aggression initially consisted of a bombing campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces to Yemen.
According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi war has claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis so far.
The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.
More than three and a half years into that war, Saudi Arabia has achieved neither of its objectives. This is while it had declared at the start of the invasion that the war would take no more than a couple of weeks.
Since the onset of that war, Riyadh has been accused of using banned chemical weapons against the Yemeni soldiers defending their country against the Saudi-led aggression, with reports of using US-supplied white phosphorus munitions that can maim and kill by burning to the bone.
