There must be “proper investigations” to ensure that Saudi Arabia has not breached international humanitarian law in the war in Yemen, according to Britain’s foreign secretary, who said that shipments of UK-supplied weapons would be halted if the Saudis fell foul of those probes.

Philip Hammond’s comments came as Britain is being urged to halt the supply of weapons to Riyadh in the light of evidence that civilians are being killed in Saudi-led attacks on rebel forces in Yemen.



Amnesty International has warned that “damning evidence of war crimes” highlights the urgent need for an independent investigation of violations and for the suspension of transfer of arms used in the attacks.

Speaking during a visit to the US, Hammond told BBC’s Newsnight on Tuesday that he had discussed the use of the weapons in Yemen when he visited Saudi Arabia recently.

“The Saudis deny that there have been any breaches of international humanitarian law,” he said. “Obviously that denial alone is not enough. We need to see proper investigations. We need to work with the Saudis to establish that international humanitarian law has been complied with. We have an export licensing system that responds if we find that it is not. We will then find that we cannot licence additional shipments of weapons.”

Saying that he was aware that some British weapons were being used in Yemen, Hammond added: “That doesn’t fall foul of the export licensing criteria. It would be hypocritical to think that we could have a large defence industry exporting weapons systems and that they never get used. What matters is that they are used legally in compliance with international humanitarian law and we monitor that very carefully.

“The important thing is that they are being used legally in an international armed conflict. There have been accusations of breaches of international humanitarian law. We regularly intervene with the Saudis to encourage them to be transparent with us.”

Separately during his visit to the US, the foreign secretary also broached the subject of Russia’s intervention in Syria and the likely next move by Russia’s president, telling journalists: “My assessment of Mr Putin and the way he works, he’s clearly got two options now.”



“He can double down and increase the pressure that he’s seeking to bring to bear on Isil, or he can back off and seek a way of limiting Russia’s engagement in Syria while still seeking to achieve his diplomatic objectives, and that would imply a greater commitment to and engagement the talks that are taking place in Vienna.

“One thing I think we can take as a given is that Mr Putin will never wish to appear to be backing down in anything, never wish to give any impression that he’s acting out of weakness rather than strength.”

On the Sinai air crash, he repeated that Britain’s assessment was that it was “very likely” to have been been brought down by an explosive device, but said: “We don’t have hard evidence of a bomb yet.

“In terms of the battle against [Islamic State], it doesn’t really change anything. The bit that’s new here is the ability to penetrate airport security and that of course will lead to questions about the way we do airport security in the region in areas at high threat from [Isis].”