(From dpa/NAN)
The German government on Thursday extended the arms export ban on Saudi Arabia by one year until the end of 2021 and even tightened it.
Permits that have already been granted, which were previously only on hold, will be revoked, with the exception of supplies for European cooperation projects, a government spokeswoman told dpa on request.
The Federal government will continue not to issue new permits for arms exports in the coming year, she said, but here too, as before, joint productions with European partners are excluded.
However, in such projects, German companies must insist that the final assembled goods are not initially delivered to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The export ban on Saudi Arabia, which has been in force since 2018, has already been extended several times and was last set in March to Dec 31, 2020.
The measure goes back to the coalition agreement between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc and the junior partner Social Democrats (SPD), in which a complete arms export stop for all countries directly involved in the Yemen war, was stipulated.
However, the decision for Saudi Arabia was largely only implemented in November 2018 after the killing of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who was critical of the Riyadh government, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.