U.S. President Donald Trump (L) walks with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 20, 2017. /VCG Photo
The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate has passed three resolutions to stop U.S. selling arms to Saudi Arabia, while President Trump vows to veto.
The first two resolutions, to prohibit sales benefiting Saudi Arabia and various Western nations, passed with 53 votes, while the third resolution, to block several arms deals also benefiting Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and others, passed with 51 votes.
The votes cast a shadow on Donald Trump's alliance with the Gulf country, while Trump can use his emergency authority to veto it, which could be overridden if two-thirds majority of the House and Senate both vote against it.
However, the situation now is while all the resolutions of disapproval are likely to pass both in the House and Senate, more supporters are still needed to overcome Trump's pledged veto.
An undated U.S. Air Force handout photo of a RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned (drone) aircraft. /Reuters Photo
This is not the first time for the U.S. to try to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. The U.S. Senate voted 54-46 in March this year to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led coalition fighting in Yemen, while Trump vetoed the resolution later, and Democrats failed to overturn Trump's veto in May.
Trump's justification to complete the arms deal with Saudi Arabia is the rising tensions with Iran.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed in May that threats from Iran make arms sales to Saudi Arabia necessary, considering that the Saudis have reportedly faced a number of attacks from Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Saudi-led air strikes in Sanaa, Yemen, August 31, 2016. /VCG Photo
The Yemeni civil war has been widely seen as an extension of the Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, and the U.S. has been providing arms to aid the Saudi forces and conducting airstrikes in Yemen for a long time.
One of the reasons for opposition against arms sales to Saudi Arabia is the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen. Figures released by the Armed Conflict and Location Event Data Project (ACLED), a database tracking violence in the country, disclosed in April that more than 70,000 people have been killed in Yemen's civil war since January 2016.
A total of 17,729 civilians have died and or been injured by Saudi-led coalition's bombing campaign in the past four years, according to the Yemen Data Project, an independent monitoring group.
Yemen is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with more than 10 million people driven to the brink of famine. /VCG Photo
Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Associated Press that the war in Yemen was one reason for his opposition to the arms sales.
"These are bombs that we know have killed thousands of civilians in Yemen, patients in hospitals, children on school buses," Menendez said. He called the humanitarian situation in Yemen "an incomprehensible moral tragedy."
Another major reason for legislators to reject the arms sales is the murder of the dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October. Khashoggi disappeared after entering Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, where Turkey believed he was killed.
Yasin Aktay speaks in front of images of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a commemoration ceremony held in Istanbul, Turkey, November 11, 2018. /VCG Photo
UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard claimed in a report Wednesday that there is reliable evidence to investigate and impose financial sanctions against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Khashoggi.
The document detailing the dissident's murder by Saudi agents at the country's Istanbul consulate has cast a renewed spotlight on the case.
The revelations, including audio transcripts showing the Saudi agents involved referring to Khashoggi as a "sacrificial animal," have piled pressure on Western allies to suspend arms sales to the kingdom.
(With input from AFP and AP)