{"id":2316,"date":"2017-12-18T01:29:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T02:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madaresharghi.com\/saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith\/"},"modified":"2017-12-18T01:29:42","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T02:29:42","slug":"saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia 'largest buyer' of British weapons: Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

madaresharghi<\/a>
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Senior British member of the Campaign against Arm Trade (CAAT) Andrew Smith said that the largest buyer of the British arms is the Saudi Arabia ‘which we have seen a significant increase over the recent years.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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\n\tSpeaking to madaresharghi in London, Smith said that 60 percent of the UK arms around the last 10 years have gone to the Persian Gulf’s oppressive states, madaresharghi reported.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is clear that where humanitarian abuses are taking place there are arms dealers looking to make profit from it. Whether if that is the terrible destruction which has been waged on Yemen over the last three years which the arms companies have made billions of pounds, whether it is in Bahrain where the dictatorship has led a crackdown against the people of Bahrain,\u201d Smith said, madaresharghi reported.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cTo the arms sellers \u2026wherever the weapons going they just want to make a profit and to government like the UK, which have been pouring weapons to conflict zone for decades; this is just another business opportunity, another chance to get close to regimes, whether it is in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or dictators elsewhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked \u201cHow can the UK government justify its acts\u201d he said, \u201cUK claims to have one of the most rigorous and robust arms export control systems in the world. Of course nothing can be further from the truth. Over the course of the terrible bombing of Yemen, for example, we have seen the worst cholera outbreak on record and one of the most humanitarian crises and still the arms sale continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmith stressed, \u201cEven British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has referred to the terrible situation in Yemen as the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world but that has not stopped him playing an acting role in promoting arms sales, the same terrible dictatorship which has waged too much of the destruction and damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCiting how the UK government tries to justify selling arms to dictators he added, \u201cThey tend to say we do not get involved directly which is not the argument you could use for selling anything.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUK tends to stand for human right and democracy in the world stage which is what we are always hearing and if that is the case, it cannot be selling weapons to human right abusers and dictatorships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked \u201cHow much is the volume of UK arms sales currently stand at the moment\u201d he said that UK arms worth \u201cabout one to 1.5 billion pounds a year in terms of licenses. Largest buyers are Saudi Arabia which we have seen a significant increase over the recent years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\u201cSince the bombing began almost three years ago the UK licensed over 4.6 Billion Pounds worth of fighter jets and bombs to Saudi Arabia regime. Apart from Saudi, 60 percent of the UK arm around the last 10 years, have gone to the Persian Gulf.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReferring to the Persian Gulf as a \u2018small region,\u2019 Smith said, \u201cBut it plays a huge disproportionate role in UK arms sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUAE and Egypt are also very large buyer as well. A lot of these regimes which have appalling human right record are also among the largest buyers of UK arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmith added, \u201cOf the 60 million Pounds arms to Bahrain, a lot of arms are used by the Bahraini police who has an Appealing human right record.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBahrain, he said, \u201cIs a terrible dictatorship which the UK has been doing arms trade with, for decades. Government ministers are regularly doing all they can to maximize arms sales to the regime.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

madaresharghi Senior British member of the Campaign against Arm Trade (CAAT) Andrew Smith said that the largest buyer of the British arms is the Saudi Arabia ‘which we have seen a significant increase over the recent years. Speaking to madaresharghi in London, Smith said that 60 percent of the UK arms around the last 10 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[296,118,28,31,159,639,178,56,213,84,95,82,68,22,23,27],"yoast_head":"\nSaudi Arabia 'largest buyer' of British weapons: Smith - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saudi Arabia 'largest buyer' of British weapons: Smith - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"madaresharghi Senior British member of the Campaign against Arm Trade (CAAT) Andrew Smith said that the largest buyer of the British arms is the Saudi Arabia ‘which we have seen a significant increase over the recent years. Speaking to madaresharghi in London, Smith said that 60 percent of the UK arms around the last 10 […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-18T02:29:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/\",\"name\":\"madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\",\"description\":\"madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith\/\",\"name\":\"Saudi Arabia 'largest buyer' of British weapons: Smith - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-18T02:29:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-12-18T02:29:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/c52e345120843d5f259215c4e809cdd2\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/saudi-arabia-largest-buyer-of-british-weapons-smith\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/c52e345120843d5f259215c4e809cdd2\",\"name\":\"administrator\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/901309319175b0d219e688b01909d220?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"administrator\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}