The remarks came as Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by the coalition led by the Saudi regime for almost 17 months but Riyadh has reached none of its objectives in Yemen so far.
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Andrew Smith, of the Campaign Against Arms Trade, warns that the dependence of British exporters on unsavory regimes could make the United Kingdom less likely to intervene against human rights violators.
The UK has supplied billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia in recent years, including $2.8bn since the beginning of the Saudi campaign in Yemen.
In March, Amnesty International delivered a batch of homemade bombs to Downing Street on Whitehall in protest at British arms deals to Saudi Arabia.
“Having regard to all the information available to us, we assess that this test has not been met”.
According to the Guardian, Johnson’s conclusion was “based largely on an Saudi-led inquiry into eight controversial incidents, including the bombing of hospitals”. In one case it offered compensation to the victims.
The news comes as MPs decide whether to call for a ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia in light of allegations of indiscriminate bombing by the Saudi-led coalition during the 18-month-old Yemen civil war. “This is the standard we set ourselves and our allies”.
The PM’s concern over human rights abuses runs in contrast with her own foreign secretary, however, who defended Britain’s continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia in a written statement to Parliament on Monday.
On August 15, Saudi airstrikes on a Yemeni hospital staffed by the aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) left 19 dead and 24 injured, despite MSF claiming it had shared the hospital’s location with all parties in the conflict. It was the fourth attack on an MSF facility in Yemen in a year, and led to the MSF withdrawing from parts of Yemen.
An investigation by the Independent found Britain is now the second biggest arms dealer in the world.
The International Development Committee has demanded Mr Johnson explain the embarrassing clarification, while MPs have called for a Commons statement on the issue.
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A three day hearing is due to take place in front of two judges no later than February 1, 2017.
