NGO Says UK To Be 'Criminal' If Keeps Selling Arms To Riyadh For Bloody Campaign In Yemen

LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) The UK government will be behaving "in criminal manner" if it continues to provide military and political support for Saudi Arabia, the country generating a major humanitarian catastrophe by bombing Yemen, Chris Nineham, the vice chair of the UK's Stop the War Coalition (STWC), told Sputnik

"It's a disgrace at every level ... obviously the fact that the UK sells more weapons to Saudi Arabia than any other country in the world at at a time when it's involved in generating the biggest humanitarian catastrophe in the world is deeply troubling ... So if the British government continues to support the Saudi government in these circumstances it will frankly be behaving in a criminal manner. It's unconscionable, it's beyond a disgrace that these kind of links are sustained," Nineham said.

These remarks come as UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to face questions from the parliament's Foreign Affairs select committee on Wednesday over the country's support for Saudi military operations in Yemen. The meeting is accompanied by the heightened public debate over UK arms sales to Riyadh following the murder of Saudi opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Nineham believes that London should also stop supporting Saudi Arabia since the "deeply repressive, autocratic regime" in Riyadh imprisoned and killed its political opponents. Nineham, in particular, blamed the government in Riyadh for Khashoggi's murder.

Nineham, however, noted that little is likely to change in regards to the United Kingdom's political relationship with Riyadh.

"It's not just about arms sales although that is very important to the British government, but it's also about geopolitics. Saudi Arabia is seen as a very stable and loyal regime which will continue to allow the west to have access to oil across the middle East, and will also oppose any elements that are challenging western rule in the region. So Saudi Arabia is one of Britain's key allies in the region and is regarded as perhaps more important than any other. So it will take a lot to break that," he stressed.

At the same time, Nineham said he felt that public opinion on London-Riyadh relations had allegedly shifted after Khashoggi's death.

"I think we have popular onion on our side as this is a moment where there's revulsion against the regime going on across the world. So this is a point where real change is possible," Nineham stressed.

According to the information provided by the UK Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), London has licensed arms worth almost 5 billion Pounds ($6.6 billion) to Saudi Arabia since March 2015. Multiple rights groups have repeatedly criticized the United Kingdom and other Western nations for delivering arms to Riyadh, stressing that it made them complicit in crimes and what was dubbed by the United Nations as the "world's worst humanitarian crisis" in Yemen.