Call to ban Saudi military pilots from using Isle of Man airport

The UK Ministry of Defence said Ronaldsway was used for training

The Isle of Man should ban Saudi military pilots from using the island's airport, a campaign group has said.

The Celtic League's Bernard Moffatt said it was "absurd" Ronaldsway was used by pilots training at RAF Valley because of the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

Denying access would show the Isle of Man "won't accept breaches in international law," he said.

Chief Minster Howard Quayle said the constitutional link to the UK meant the practice could not be stopped.

Yemen has been devastated by a conflict that escalated in March 2015, when alarmed by the rise of a group they believed to be backed militarily by regional Shia power Iran seizing a large part of the country, Saudi Arabia and eight other mostly Sunni Arab states began an air campaign.

The UN says at least 7,000 civilians have been killed in the country, with 65% of the deaths attributed to air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition.

'Symbolic message'

The RAF provides routine engineering and training support for UK supplied aircraft and aircrews under the Ministry of Defence's Saudi Armed Forces Project.

In a letter to Mr Moffitt, the UK ministry said 37 Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) personnel have been trained at RAF Valley airbase on Anglesey, Wales, during the past decade, and Ronaldsway was one of many "local airfields used for "visual approaches and departures".

Mr Moffitt said banning RSAF pilots would not stop the war in Yemen but it would send out the "symbolic message to the international community".

Bernard Moffatt said the government's position was "absurd"

Mr Quayle said prohibiting Saudi pilots from using the airport could be a breach of the island's equality laws, while the practice benefitted the island financially and in terms of the training of air traffic controllers.

As the Isle of Man is a British Crown Dependency, the UK has constitutional responsibility for its international relations and the chief minister said that meant defence was a matter for the UK government.

The Manx government has donated £270,000 to charities responding to the crisis in Yemen since the conflict began.

Chairman of the One World Centre Phil Craine told the Local Democracy Reporting Service it "rubs salt in the wounds" to find that whilst the charity was fundraising for the DEC Yemen Appeal, Saudi pilots could have been training overhead.

"We have to do all in our power to prevent the suffering in the first place," he said.