GARGASH: THE ROAD IS OPEN FOR HOUTHI MILITIAS TO WITHDRAW
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs tells rebels to throw down their arms and leave Hodeidah ‘while they can’
In his strongest warning yet, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Anwar Gargash, urged Houthi rebels to withdraw “unconditionally” from Hodeidah or face losing all political influence.
Operation Golden Victory, which began on Wednesday, was being carried out to “help the UN envoy [Martin Griffiths] in his last chance to convince the Houthis to withdraw unconditionally from the city and avoid any confrontation”, Dr Gargash said.
“This is not the time to negotiate,” he said, emphasising that the coalition had spent more than a year trying to negotiate third-party control of the port.
“If this does not happen, be assured we are determined to achieve our targets,” he said.
Emirati targets consist of wresting the port from Houthi hands, as well as returning the city of Hodeidah to the control of government-aligned forces.
He said “the Hodeidah port operation will continue unless rebels withdraw unconditionally”.
“This is the time to save their militia and pull out of the city.”
Dr Gargash said coalition forces had left the road to Sanaa open, in an effort to encourage a Houthi withdrawal from the city. “The Hodeidah-Sanaa road was kept open for the past few days to allow an escape route – no questions asked.”
The minister said the goal of the operation was to bring the Houthis to the negotiating table and ultimately help find a political solution to the civil war.
“[The operation] will force them [the Houthis] to start a political process, the objective is to use military force to change the calculus and force them to the negotiating table.
“We are now at the kerb of strategic change – we will liberate Hodeidah.”
Dr Gargash said the coalition was still hopeful of diplomatic efforts. “We are still counting on the UN attempt to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, was scheduled to brief the UN Security Council late yesterday, after two days of talks with the Houthi leadership in Sanaa.
Several previous rounds of peace talks between government-aligned forces and the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have failed.
The minister described the port as a “major money maker” for the Houthis, and restated the Arab Coalition’s belief that Iran is using it to smuggle
arms to the group. “Drones, precision weaponry, ballistic missiles – they were not there at the beginning of the war, they weren’t in the Yemeni armoury,” he said.
Dr Gargash also sought to allay fears of an impending humanitarian crisis, highlighting the efforts the UAE and its partners in the Arab Coalition had made in preparing contingency plans should the flow of aid through the port be disrupted by fighting for the city.
At present, fighting for the airport is raging on the city’s southern outskirts, and the port remains operational, with six ships scheduled to dock yesterday and others registering to unload aid in the coming days.
“We have planned diligently around the humanitarian side; the operation should allow the port to function as long as we can,” Dr Gargash said.
The coalition, he said, feared that Houthi militants may have mined the port, but that 100 lorries loaded with aid were on the road to Hodeidah from Mokha and Aden, while seven planes carrying humanitarian relief were ready to deliver as needed. The coalition had also made plans to drop aid into the city from the air if required, Dr Gargash said.
The port is the entry point for 70 per cent of Yemen’s food and fuel supplies.
Responding to initial reports that the airport had been fully recaptured, he said government-aligned forces were still coming under sniper fire from neighbouring residential areas.
“We don’t want to fire back because we cannot afford to risk the loss of [civilian] lives,” he said.
Dr Gargash estimated that there were between 2,000 and 3,000 Houthi fighters, whom he described as “nondescript, and not in uniform”, still in the city, and said the coalition confirmed 250 rebel fighters had been killed in the first three days of the offensive that began last Wednesday.
He emphasised the importance of the Yemeni government’s continued involvement. “Any offer of [a Houthi] withdrawal should be unconditional and should involve the government of Yemen, it should have a role in this, our clear expectation is an unconditional withdrawal”.
Dr Gargash claimed that the population of Hodeidah had rejected the Houthi rule over parts of Yemen. “Hodeidah is actually a city that wants to get rid of the Houthis, it’s 500,000 people, but they don’t comply with Houthis’ radicalised vision.
“We’ve been watching for a year now, we can see that there is a clear rejection of the Houthis and their occupation of Hodeidah.”
The minister denied media reports from France that Paris had soldiers deployed on the ground in support of the Arab Coalition-backed forces. But, he said, he did appreciate the French offer to send mine clearance teams to Yemen when it becomes necessary.
Any action that concerns the future of Hodeidah must involve legitimate Yemeni government