Members of the UK parliament are urging their government to halt military supplies to Saudi Arabia until an international independent inquiry into their actions in Yemen is completed. The pressure came following a letter from aid agencies to Secretary Justine Greening of the international development select committee calling for the withdrawal of UK’s opposition to an inquiry into alleged abuses of humanitarian laws in the war torn country.
Pressure on Riyadh, over the bombings carried out by the military coalition it is leading, increased after a leaked UN report stated that some actions of the Houthis and the coalition forces could be considered as crimes against humanity. Committee Chairman Stephen Twigg stressed the need for “an independent, international fact-finding mission to uncover the truth. Until then we should cease selling arms to Saudi Arabia.”
MPs told The Guardian that they “received evidence that close to £3billion worth of arms licenses have been granted for exports to Saudi in the last six months. This includes £1bn worth of bombs rockets and missiles for the three-month period from July to September last year – up from only £9m in the previous three months.”
The committee in the U.K parliament is asking the government to suspend exportation licenses but that is unlikely to hurt the oil rich country because U.K is not its main source of supply. Riyadh is preparing to buy $1.29billion of arms from the US as it continues its war to reinstate Hadi as the president of Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has always stressed that it is fighting against terrorism and foreign minister al-Jubeir stressed in a recent column that al-Qaeda, ISIS and Iran are all contributors of the global terrorism which Riyadh is determinedly fighting.
