US SNUBS Saudi Arabian arms deal after Boris Johnson’s tirade, as Yemen death toll rises
THE US has sensationally pulled the plug on an arms deal with Saudi Arabia over the Kingdom’s continuous bombardment of Yemen.
The move to limit military support comes following a lengthy tirade by Boris Johnson condemning the treatment of civilians affected by the Saudi campaign.
A planned weapons sale of pricey precision-guided munitions built by Raytheon, a major American military manufacturing company, was due to take place.
Boris Johnson: Saudi Arabia is playing proxy wars
I certainly haven’t retreated from or adjusted anything I have said
But 48-hours after Mr Johnson expressed his “deep concern” for the suffering people in Yemen during a visit to Saudi Arabia, the US changed their minds.
A senior US administration official said: “We have made clear that US security cooperation is not a blank check.
“Consequently, we have decided to not move forward with some foreign military sales cases for munitions.
"This reflects our continued, strong concerns with the flaws in the coalition's targeting practises and overall prosecution of the air campaign in Yemen."
Saudi Arabia should be paying the United States many billions of dollars for our defense of them. Without us, gone! @AlWaleedbinT
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2015
Yemen’s 20-month-old civil war has seen the slaughter of more than 10,000 innocent civilians, and according to the United Nations, around 60 per cent of some 4,000 civilian deaths have resulted from Saudi-led air strikes.
During his visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the Foreign Secretary stressed the importance of Britain’s relationship with the Arab state, but refused to back down from his controversial comments last week.
George Galloway: Boris Johnson told the truth
He said relation’s with the Gulf Kingdom were “as close today as they have ever been” and the country “matters deeply to us in the UK, and it matters to our security.”
Johnson added: "I certainly haven’t retreated from or adjusted anything I have said, but obviously I think that what I did say was distorted in a very bizarre way."
In response to comments from King Salman and others about the wars in Syria and Yemen, Johnson said civilians had found themselves in a “dreadful” situation where a Saudi-led coalition is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
Yemen is currently gripped by food shortages and a number of other humanitarian crises.