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Swedish defence chief denies Swedish construction of weapons factory in Saudi Arabia
Thursday, 08 March 2012
There are no
Swedish constructions of a weapons factory in Saudi Arabia, according
to the head of the Swedish defence, StenTolgfors. He rejects all the
details of plans for such, even though the contract from 2005 was
talking about the production of military equipment.
Seven years ago the Social Democratic government signed a contract with the Saudi Arabians for military co-operation.
In the major
part of its two Articles it clearly stated that "Each Party shall work
together in promoting the industry as a country and to develop common
projects for the assembly or production of military equipment to the
other party." Also it is added that the production of equipment
typically would require some form of factory space.
But two days
after the revelation by radio Sweden about such a proposed arms
factory, Sten Tolgfors now reject the allegation that Sweden would
somehow be involved in a similar project.
In a write up
published in the Swedish daily, Svenska Dagbladet (Svd), he argues
supported by the Minister for Trade, Ewa Björling, that the
coalition parties agreed that there should be a Swedish arms factory in
Saudi Arabia.
Tolgfors and
Björling dismiss reports that the National Inspectorate of Strategic
Products (ISP) had given the company SstI, or any other operator,
permission to build a weapons factory in Saudi Arabia. According to the
radio Sweden, SstI had obtained a permit from the ISP in July 2009 to
trade in military equipment.
Dick Sträng,
who through the dummy company SstI, support by the FOI, coordinated the
construction of the Saudi plant since it was considered too sensitive
for the authority to do so, is highly critical of how the Defense
Department handled the issue:
"My opinion is
that the Defense Department is responsible for all the mess that has
been shown in these reports. FOI was just trying to solve the problems
we were subjected to, "he said.
According to
Sträng, who left the FOI, the Defense Department changed course several
times and FOI pressed to find solutions to fulfil the agreement with
the Saudis. A temporary solution was for the means time to allow a
front company to be managing the project, while FOI staff acted as
consultants.
Tolgfors and
Ewa Björling claims that FOI has received no government mandate to act
that way and has now asked the FOI to disclose their relationships to
the dummy company.
Tolgfors action will most likely be reviewed by the Swedish parliamentary constitutional committee (KU).
KU's chairman,
Peter Eriksson of the Green party, said that except it is an urgent
matter the committee is not under pressure to review this until next
year.
By Scancomark.se Team
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