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German opposition blasts military assistance in Saudi tank tests

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Berlin, July 7, IRNA -- Germany's main opposition parties lambasted the Merkel government for its role in providing training on the latest Leopard 2 combat tanks in Saudi Arabia, press reports said Saturday.

Lawmakers from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Greens and The Left party (Die Linke) voiced outrage over Berlin's decision to dispatch an arrmy field officer to the Persian Gulf Arab kingdom on Monday to assist the Saudi side in the test-firing of the Leopard 2 tanks.

Talking to the German Press Agency dpa, the military expert of the SPD Rainer Arnold labeled the move a "drastic wrong decision."

Meanwhile, a Green legislator Katja Keul stressed it was not the role of the German military to support arms export.

Keul's remarks were backed by the deputy head of The Left faction, Jan van Aken who accused the government of "misusing (German) soldiers and police to promote the sale of arms exports."

A wide majority of Germans strongly oppose the sale of hundreds of German-made battle tanks to Saudi Arabia, according to a recent poll published by the Hamburg-based weekly news magazine stern.

Some 75 percent of those questioned rejected the planned sale of up to 800 combat tanks to the despotic Arab regime, while only 20 percent approved the deal.

Germany's government has refused to comment on a recent press report that said Riyadh is to purchase 600 to 800 Leopard 2 combat tanks, not 200 to 300 as reported a year ago.

A sale of the Leopard 2 tanks by German arms manufacturer, Kraus-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), would require green light by the top-secret National Security Council, headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

German peace, church and labor union organizations have joined opposition parties in protesting the planned sale of tanks to Riyadh, whose worth is estimated at 10 billion euros.

They have expressed strong concern over the highly secretive nature of the arms sale, saying these tanks could be used to crush internal dissent in either Saudi Arabia or neighboring Bahrain where Riyadh played a key role in smashing a popular uprising in March, 2011.

Weapons from Germany have been massively deployed in the Middle East and North Africa to crush peaceful protests, according to a report published by the London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI).

German weapon exports included small firearms, ammunition and military vehicles which were used to squash demonstrations.

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Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 1022460