Norway has delivered arms worth over one billion kroner to Qatar this year

Qatar has become one of the largest recipients of Norwegian weapons in recent years. So far in 2022, Norway has sold weapons worth over NOK 1.3 billion to the desert state.

This is written by the newspaper Vårt Land, which refers to figures from Statistics Norway.

The background for the large-scale sale is an agreement from 2019 where the arms manufacturer Kongsberg undertook to deliver the air defense system Nasams-2 as part of a larger agreement between the American partner Raytheon and Qatar.

According to Teknisk Ukeblad, Kongsberg’s part of the agreement is to be worth NOK 5.6 billion – the largest single contract in the company’s history. Arms sales do not go down well with senior researcher Nicholas Marsh at Prio:

– I think it is problematic with arms exports to regimes that do not respect human rights and are not democratic, because of the political signals it sends, says Marsh to Vårt Land.

The rules for Norwegian arms exports state that the sale of arms to areas where there is war or the threat of war shall not be permitted. Qatar is thus not affected by this rule, but Marsh still believes that Norway is sending a signal that the regime is acceptable.