Germany has said it would hold firm on its decision to halt weapons exports to Saudi Arabia, ignoring British requests.

“The stance of the government is that we won’t deliver weapons to Saudi Arabia at the moment,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said after talks with his British counterpart about the decision taken in October over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Both the Eurofighter and Tornado jets contain German components. An export ban has therefore had a domino effect on other European companies involved in building the aircraft.

Germany’s decision to freeze arms exports has also caused France’s opposition where President Emmanuel Macron had labelled it “pure demagoguery”.