Foreign secretary says breaches of international law during Yemen airstrikes were not proven, as MPs prepare to call for ban on UK exports

The British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has defended UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, saying the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen is not “in clear breach” of international humanitarian law.

This week MPs will decide whether to call for a ban on arms sales to Saudi in light of allegations of indiscriminate bombing by the Saudi-led coalition during the 18-month-old Yemen civil war.



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In a written statement to parliament, Johnson says: “The key test for our continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia in relation to international humanitarian law is whether those weapons might be used in a commission of a serious breach of international humanitarian law. Having regard to all the information available to us, we assess this test has not been met.”



His judgment is based largely on an Saudi-led inquiry into eight controversial incidents, including the bombing of hospitals. The report, published on 4 August, largely defended the bombing runs on the basis that the Saudis had received credible intelligence that enemy Houthi forces were in the area. In one case it offered compensation to the victims.

Defending the credibility of a Saudi-led inquiry exonerating Saudi targeting, Johnson said: “They have the best insight into their own procedures and will be able to conduct the most thorough and conclusive investigations. It will also allow the coalition forces to work out what went wrong and apply the lessons learned in the best possible way. This is the standard we set ourselves and our allies.”



The Johnson statement clarifies the UK position after ministers were forced to retract some statements asserting unequivocally that there had been no breaches of international humanitarian law by the Saudis in Yemen.



Subsequent to the Saudi inquiry report, Saudi airstrikes on 15 August left 19 killed and 24 injured when a raid hit a Yemeni hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It was the fourth attack on an MSF facility in Yemen in a year, and led to the MSF withdrawing from parts of Yemen. MSF said it it had shared the hospital’s GPS coordinates with all parties involved in the conflict



A meeting by the Commons committee of arms export controls on Wednesday will see a cross-party push for the UK to suspend its multibillion-pound arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Such a move would infuriate Riyadh, unnerve arms manufacturers and embarrass the Conservative government.

On 25 August the United Nations’ top human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, called for an international independent inquiry into the Saudi air campaign. A UN report said 60% of the civilian deaths documented in a one-year period had resulted from airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on weddings, markets, schools and hospitals. In several of those attacks, the UN said it was unable to identify any possible military target.



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The UK government has previously said it was not against an international inquiry, but favoured a Saudi-led inquiry.



At a press conference in Bahrain in August, the Saudi-led coalition cleared itself of breaches of humanitarian law in six out of eight cases investigated, including raids last year on a delivery by UN World Food Programme trucks that had not coordinated with the coalition.

The joint incident assessment team – a Middle East-based group made up of members representing Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – accepted that coalition forces had bombed a residential complex in Mokha directorate in July 2015, but said that the attack was launched based on intelligence information stating the presence of four military targets in the areas controlled by Houthi rebels. The team added that a residential complex was partly affected by “unintentional bombing” based on inaccurate intelligence information.

It rejected a claim submitted by MSF regarding airstrikes on the organisation’s Haydan hospital in the area of Saada. However, the latest incidents and the Saudi-led coalition’s rejection of wrongdoing is likely to strengthen the case for the suspension of arms sales.

In a series of written corrections made on 21 July, the last day of parliament, the Foreign Office withdrew previous claims that the UK judged that no breaches of humanitarian law had occurred, stating instead: “We have been unable to assess whether there is a breach of international humanitarian law.”

The Ministry of Defence also revised its position, stating it had “not been able to assess whether the Saudis were targeting civilians”. MoD advisers have been providing logistical support to the Saudi-led bombing campaign.

The government said the changes did not represent a change in policy but had been made to ensure consistency in ministerial responses to parliament.

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, an SNP MP, has written to the Speaker of the House of Commons calling for Johnson to appear as soon as possible after recess so “he can answer for his department’s misleading claims”.

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The chair of the international development select committee, Stephen Twigg, has written to Johnson asking for an explanation for the previous false assurances, partly made in evidence to his own committee’s inquiry into Yemen.

Twigg wrote on 25 July that the significant corrections made by the government in the previous week “call into question the depth of the UK government’s specific assessments of Saudi operations or of the evidence heard by my committee on alleged violations of international humanitarian law”.

The confusion has been deepened by a letter sent to the committee on arms exports controls by the Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood on 20 July, stating that the government did not believe a serious violation of international humanitarian law (IHL) had occurred.

His conclusion, he wrote, was based on considered analysis by the MoD of all incidents that came to its attention of alleged IHL violations by the coalition in Yemen; understanding and knowledge of Saudi Arabian army processes and procedures, ongoing engagement with the army; and post-incident dialogue.

The international development select committee’s report called for an independent inquiry into the Saudi bombing campaign, but did not recommend a ban on UK arms exports to Saudi. The Tory majority voted instead to refer the issue to the committee on arms exports controls.

Since March 2015 Saudi Arabia, backed by its Sunni Arab allies, the US and Britain, have been launching airstrikes in neighbouring Yemen to reinstate the president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and counter advances by Houthi rebels.

Houthi fighters, who belong to the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam, control the capital, Sana’a, and the western part of Yemen, and are allied with the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who led the country from 1990 to 2012. Hadi is currently living in exile in Riyadh, and the Saudis regard the Houthis as proxies for Iran. Peace talks sponsored by Kuwait broke down in August.