• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

UAE among top three recipients of German arms: gov't report

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Berlin, Dec 15, IRNA -- The United Arab Emirates was among the three leading recipients of German weapons in 2009, according to a report released by the German government on Wednesday.

The tiny Persian Gulf sheikdom was ranked second after the US in terms of total German arms exports last year which stood at 5.04 billion euros.

Germany sold around 540.7 million euros worth of military hardware to the UAE, among them radar and steering systems, torpedoes, simulators, missiles, hand grenades, armored vehicles, tank spare parts, automatic cannons, amphibious vehicles and trucks.

Meanwhile, another Persian Gulf country, Saudi Arabia, was listed sixth in the overall export of German weaponry with 167.9 million euros.

German military gadgetry to the Arabian country included airplanes, spare parts for combat jets, missile parts, refueling aircraft, grenades, sea mine removal instruments and communication systems.

Critics have slammed German arms exports to the volatile Middle East region since the German constitution bans the sales of weapons to a crisis area.

As expected, the government report did not reveal the actual volume of weapon sales to the Zionist regime.

A major arms supplier of the illegal Jewish state, Berlin talks rarely in public about military deals as most of them are shrouded in secrecy in a bid not to antagonize Muslim and Arab states.

Germany delivered three Dolphin-calls diesel submarines in 1999 and 2000, which are widely believed to carry nuclear missiles.

Another two are on order from north German-based Kiel shipyard Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) and scheduled to be delivered by 2012.

Dolphins cost around 700 million US dollars but those in Israel's submarine fleet were extensively financed by Germany which says it feels 'committed' to the security of the Zionist regime founded as a result of the Nazi-era mass killings of Jews.

Tel Aviv had also hoped for a similar financing package on two Meko corvettes, built at ThyssenKrupp's Blohm+Voss shipyards in Hamburg.