Hartung told Reuters the report would be made available publicly on September 8.
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Jeremy Corbyn reiterated his call for the Government to block arms sales temporarily after a committee of MPs said it was “very difficult” to continue justifying exports given the weight of evidence stacking up. “Washington also provides maintenance and training to Saudi security forces”.
Theresa May has staunchly defended selling arms to Saudi Arabia despite the country facing accusations of war crimes, insisting close ties “keep people on the streets of Britain safe”.
According to BBC Two’s Newsnight, the Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls said in a draft report: “The weight of evidence of violations of global humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is now so great that it is very hard to continue to support Saudi Arabia while maintaining the credibility of our arms licensing regime”.
The coalition says it does not target civilians and accuses the Houthis of placing military targets in civilian areas.
At a press conference in Cairo, Abdel-Raqeeb Fatah, Yemen’s minister of local administration, accused the United Nations agencies, which are mostly based in the Houthi-held Sanaa, of “working from their offices” and not reflecting events on the ground – remarks that echoed recent Saudi accusations of U.N.’s bias in the Yemeni civil war.
Last month, aid agency Oxfam accused the British government of “denial and disarray” over an agreement to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, which could be used in Yemen.
A joint analysis conducted by The Independent and the Campaign Against the Arms Trade found £7.9bn worth of arms was sold to countries on the human rights priority list, which is maintained by the Foreign Office and includes countries judged by the FCO to have “the worst, or greatest number of, human rights violations” of which Saudi Arabia is one of them.
“It’s time for the Obama administration to use the best leverage it has – Saudi Arabia’s dependence on USA weapons and support – to wage the war in Yemen in the first place”, Hartung told Reuters.
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He further suggested that, “Pulling back the current offer of battle tanks or freezing some of the tens of billions in weapons and services in the pipeline would send a strong signal to the Saudi leadership that they need stop their indiscriminate bombing campaign and take real steps to prevent civilian casualties”. Sunni Muslim Gulf states accuse Shiite Iran of fomenting instability in the region, which the Islamic Republic denies.
