Germany reverses, to greenlight Eurofighter jets to Saudi Arabia

Germany is prepared to allow further Eurofighter Typhoon jet deliveries from Europe to Saudi Arabia, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Sunday, in an unfreezing of a 2018 ban on military sales to the desert kingdom.

Eurofighters are made in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Germany stopped selling arms to Saudi Arabia following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been under increasing pressure domestically and internationally — including the United Kingdom and France — to unblock the delivery of Eurofighters to Saudi Arabia, but his coalition partner, Baerbock’s Green party, had firmly opposed the move, citing human rights concerns in the kingdom and its involvement in the Yemen war. Saudi Arabia leads a coalition that has been fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and left millions starving.