Tag: Saudi Arabia
Finally lawmakers from several states are starting to raise serious doubts about weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. The Swedish Parliament began the debate last June with a report proposing defence exports should be subject to a ‘democracy criterion’, but last month the Dutch Parliament passed a bill calling for the government to end weapons exports, while the British Committees on Arms Export Controls has just published evidence submitted as part of an inquiry into arms sales to the Gulf. Then, this week, a US Senator, Chris Murphy, finally articulated what many of his security focussed colleagues must surely have been thinking for years: weapons sales to Saudi are simply not in the US’s national security interest.