EU Lawmakers to Vote on Banning Arms Sales to KSA
Local Editor
Growing anxiety about weapons sales to Saudi Arabia is prompting the European Parliament to consider urging a ban on arms exports to the Mideast country.
European Union lawmakers are gearing up for a vote scheduled for February 25 on whether to call for an embargo on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, a country with an abysmal human-rights record that faces fresh accusations of indiscriminately bombing civilians in Yemen.
Relatively, international concern is mounting about supplying arms to the Saudis as the Canadian government waits for production to begin of weaponized armoured vehicles that Ottawa is selling to Riyadh in a $15-billion transaction - the biggest manufacturing export deal ever struck in Canada.
Although the passage of the resolution in the European Parliament would not be binding, but it would be a moral censure of trade with Saudi Arabia and put further pressure on the Trudeau government to reconsider Canada's role in equipping the Saudi military.
The resolution EU legislators are set to vote on reproaches the UK, Spain, France and Germany for supplying arms to Riyadh as the civilian death toll mounts in Yemen.
It "strongly criticizes the intensive arms trade of EU member states with various countries in the region ... [and] calls for an immediate suspension of arms transfers and military support to Saudi Arabia and to its coalition partners."
A proposed amendment, which will also be voted on, urges the imposition of an EU-wide embargo on arms sales to Riyadh.
For its part, a UN panel accused a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states of major human-rights violations in Yemen including killing more than 2,600 civilians in air strikes.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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