BERLIN: Saudi Arabia is looking into buying patrol boats worth
¤1.5bn ($2bn) from a German firm, and appears to have won the Berlin government’s approval despite widespread public criticism of arms deals, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The Arab kingdom was exploring a deal to buy the ships, each costing between ¤10 and ¤25m, from Bremen-based dockyard Luerssen, Bild am Sonntag newspaper said.
Arms exports are a sensitive issue in Germany given the country’s Nazi past and the role arms makers like Krupp played in fuelling numerous 19th and 20th century wars.
Germany’s national security council, which includes Chancellor Angela Merkel and the ministers of defence, development, economy and foreign affairs, had already given the deal a preliminary nod, according to the newspaper.
The council has to approve such deals in Germany but its decisions are not made public. A spokeswoman for the economy ministry, which oversees such deals, declined to comment.
No one at Luerssen was immediately available for comment. The newspaper did not say why Saudi Arabia might be seeking the vessels. REUTERS
