Swiss ban arms sale to the UAE

July 06, 2012 gulf-daily-news.com

ZURICH: Switzerland said it was freezing arms exports to the UAE after a report said a Swiss-made hand grenade originally shipped to the Gulf state had been found in Syria. A Swiss newspaper published a picture of a hand grenade produced by Swiss weapons manufacturer RUAG which it said had been taken in the Syrian town of Marea last month, despite the fact that Switzerland stopped arms exports to Syria in 1998.

The photograph raised concerns about the final destination of Switzerland's arms exports.

Initial findings suggested the grenade had been part of a RUAG shipment of 225,162 grenades sent to the UAE in 2003, the Swiss government said. The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs is therefore tentatively freezing all pending applications for arms exports to the UAE and demanding the return of licences which have already been issued but not yet used, the Swiss government said in a statement.

The Swiss government said it will make further inquiries because the circumstances in the case remain unclear. "At present, there is no evidence that Swiss hand grenades have found their way to Syria. Inquiries are ongoing however," it said.

The UAE government did not comment on the matter.

Meanwhile, China yesterday joined Russia in boycotting the "Friends of Syria" meeting in Paris today aimed at co-ordinating efforts to stop the bloodshed in Syria, where three senior army officers were among more than 150 people reported killed in 48 hours.

Moscow confirmed that some Western countries had asked it to offer Syrian President Bashar Al Assad a haven in exile, saying it had dismissed the idea as a "joke."

Syrian troops yesterday rained shells on several regions of the northwestern province of Idlib.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least 56 people killed nationwide yesterday, a day after 99 people died in the violence that has plagued the country for nearly 16 months. .