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UK tried to distort facts on Saudi cluster bombs purchase: Analyst

Wednesday, 11 January 2017 7:21 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 11 January 2017 7:21 PM ]

A partly exploded BL-755 British cluster weapon has been found in Yemen. (Photo by ITV News)

The British Foreign Office is under scrutiny after it was revealed that it broke the UK ministerial codes over the Saudi use of British-made weapons in Yemen. The United Kingdom delivered 500 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s which were used in its war on Yemen.

Saeed Shehabi, a political analyst from London, said that the pressure by the public opinion and the opposition party has prompted the British government to publicize the sale of those cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.

“The [UK] Foreign Office is known for its delaying tactics and also distorting the facts” on selling illegal weapons to Saudi Arabia and its use of the cluster bombs in the war on Yemen, Shehabi told Press TV’s Top 5 on Wednesday.

Last summer the British Foreign Office claimed that its assessment showed no war crimes were committed by the Saudis in Yemen, but later the ministry acknowledged that it did not carry out any assessment, he noted.

The British officials said unreliable statements on Saudi war crimes in Yemen, but the pressure of the public opinion pushed them to correct their remarks, the commentator argued.

The British government’s policy toward the Saudi aggression against Yemen has raised several questions, causing anger among members of the Labor Party, he stated.

The political expert touched on the British and American authorities’ silence towards Saudi atrocities in Yemen, adding that the UK and the US ignored international law on war crimes.

The Saudis continue to pound Yemeni cities, but the Western powers do not bother themselves to [even] condemn the war crimes in Yemen, he said.

The analyst further criticized the United Nations for failing to call for an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” and a “real investigation” into war crimes committed by the Saudi kingdom in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia's aggression against Yemen, which began in March 2015, has so far killed at least 11,400 Yemenis.

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