HRW to Biden: Stop Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE

Date: 17 January 2021 - 21:31

News ID: ۸۶۶۰۳

DUBAI (Dispatches) – Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the administration of President-elect Joe Biden to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in order to have a positive impact on the situation in Yemen.
The organization stated in a report published on its website: "The parties to the armed conflict in Yemen have continued to violate the laws of war over the past year, including committing what appear to be new war crimes.”
Saudi Arabia and some of its allies began a campaign of military aggression against Yemen in March 2015 aimed at bringing Yemen’s former pro-Riyadh government back to power.
Six years on, the aggression that has been accompanied with an all-out siege of the Arab world’s already poorest nation, has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis, displaced millions of people, and turned Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The report quoted Afrah Nasser, a researcher on Yemen at HRW, stating: "The concerned governments should publicly support calls for international accountability measures.”
The report continued: "The Biden administration has the opportunity to make a positive impact in Yemen by stopping arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, at least until stopping unlawful attacks and conducting a credible investigation into previous violations.”
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Hisham Sharaf Abdullah says as a country that keeps unleashing its war machine against the Yemeni people, Saudi Arabia cannot expect to stay safe from retaliation.
Addressing some of his Arab counterparts, Abdullah said, "If Yemen is denied its safety, Saudi Arabia cannot stay safe as an aggressor either,” Yemen’s official Saba Net news agency reported on Sunday.
"Those, who mobilize their militants towards Yemen with the goal of causing death and destroying its cities and villages, cannot expect us to respond by waving at them and sending them flowers and peace doves,” said the Yemeni minister.
Abdullah scoffed at the Saudi-led coalition’s condemnation of the retaliatory Yemeni attacks against military and commercial targets within the kingdom, asking the international community not to lose sight of the deadly strikes and interventions in Yemen.