Bonn Bars Arms Sales to Arabs Despite Saudi Plea

Facing its first major foreign policy question since unification, Germany on Thursday ruled out the sale of weapons to Arab states despite an urgent appeal from Saudi Arabia that it make a stronger commitment in the Persian Gulf crisis.

Germany apparently dodged a potentially embarrassing request from the Saudis for about 540 million marks’ ($350 million) worth of arms. Such a sale would surely damage Germany’s sensitive relations with its Jewish community and with Israel.

The visiting Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, urged German officials to take a “more active role,” now that Germany is free of the restraints imposed after World War II.

The Bonn government insisted that the Saudis have made no formal request for weapons and that Prince Saud did not bring up the subject in his discussions with Chancellor Helmut Kohl. But a few hours before the prince was scheduled to meet with Kohl, Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg told reporters that Germany would not revise its longstanding ban against sending arms to areas of conflict.

Still, a Defense Ministry official who asked not to be identified by name said later in a telephone interview that the policy may not last for long.

“It was not a decision for all the future,” he said.

The German press has reported, without confirmation, that the Saudis delivered a shopping list to the German Embassy in Riyadh and that on it were more than 300 armored vehicles of several types.

A German government spokesman, speaking on the condition that he not be quoted by name, insisted there is no such list. He speculated that the reports originated with the arms industry in an effort to pressure the government into permitting lucrative sales.

The government has refused to sell weapons to areas of conflict even though there is no specific law against it. German firms purportedly sold chemicals to Iraq that may have been used to produce chemical weapons, however.

Prince Saud told reporters before he met with Kohl that German soldiers would be welcome in Saudi Arabia if the government should choose to join the multinational force deployed there since Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2.

Germany maintains that its constitution prevents it from sending troops outside NATO territory, a restriction that Kohl opposes.

In an interview published Thursday by the conservative Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Kohl urged a change in the constitution to permit the deployment of peacekeeping troops abroad.

Just before its merger with East Germany on Oct. 3, West Germany pledged $2 billion in military aid and compensation for nations hurt by the trade embargo against Iraq.

West Germany also sent half a dozen minesweepers to the Persian Gulf and has promised to send to the U.S.-led multinational force 60 armored vehicles capable of detecting chemical weapons.