German Arms Supplies To Saudi Arabia Violating International Law - NGO

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published December 17, 2018 | 06:13 PM

The German government is violating the international law by continuing arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, head of the non-governmental ecumenical organization Gemeinsame Konferenz Kirche und Entwicklung (GKKE) said on Monday.

BERLIN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th December, 2018) The German government is violating the international law by continuing arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, head of the non-governmental ecumenical organization Gemeinsame Konferenz Kirche und Entwicklung (GKKE) said on Monday.

The NGO presented its report on the 2017 German arms exports on Monday.

"The Saudi-led coalition is still waging a war in Yemen blatantly violating the international law. The United Nations speaks about the humanitarian disaster that involves about 20 million people. The sea blockade of Yemen, which violates the international law, played a significant role in that. It cannot be ruled out that the patrol boats from Germany are used in this sea blockade. The German government is escalating the humanitarian disaster with its [arms] exports ... and [violating] mandatory in terms of the international law rules of the arms trade," Karl Justen said while presenting the report.

He pointed out that the 2018 German coalition agreement envisaged stricter control over the arms exports, particularly, to the countries involved the Yemeni conflict.

According to the GKKE, implementation of this provision was "not visible" in 2018.

The report said that in 2015-2017 the German government gave a green light for the 1.05 billion Euros ($1.19 billion) arms exports to Saudi Arabia. The paper admits that the German government suspended the arms exports to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul but pointed out that the ban was introduced for a period of two months.

Commenting on the report, German government's spokesman Steffen Seibert said that he saw nothing new in these critical remarks, which were taken into account by the cabinet.