US should lift ban on offensive arms sales to Saudi Arabia

By the Hamodia team

The United States is expected to lift a ban on the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks, the ministry said. Financial Times reported.

Washington has already signaled to Saudi Arabia that it is ready to lift the ban, according to a person familiar with the matter cited in the report.

Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden took a tougher stance on the Saudi-led campaign against the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, which has inflicted heavy civilian casualties, and regarding Riyadh's human rights record, particularly the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist and political opponent Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Arabia, the United States' biggest arms customer, is angered by the restrictions, which freeze the type of arms sales that previous U.S. administrations had granted for decades.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the United States and Saudi Arabia are close to concluding a package of agreements on nuclear energy, security and defense cooperation – the bilateral component of a broader normalization agreement with Riyadh and Israel.

However, the lifting of the ban on sales of offensive weapons was not directly linked to these negotiations, said the Financial Times note.