UAE hits out at former UN envoy to Yemen
VICE-PRESIDENT ASKS MILITIA TO HEED UN DEMAND AS COALITION BOMBS SANA’A RUNWAY AFTER IRAN DEFIES BLOCKADE
The UAE has strongly criticised outgoing UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Bin Omar following statements he made to the UN Security Council Monday night criticising the UN arms embargo on the Al Houthi militia and implicitly blaming the anti-Al Houthi coalition for derailing reconciliation talks.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash said on Twitter that Bin Omar has gone from mediator to “taking sides” in the conflict, adding that the former envoy has confirmed early impressions of him that showed that he “lacks professionalism” and seeks “personal glory”.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council, Bin Omar argued that enforcing a new arms embargo targeting the Al Houthi militia could accidentally prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen.
He also said he regretted that the 15-member body had not taken strong action sooner on his warnings of “systematic acts of obstruction” to the peace process. He said “substantial agreement had been reached on the core elements” of a power-sharing deal before the conflict escalated last month when a Saudi Arabialed coalition launched air strikes against the Al Houthis.
Yemen’s Vice-President Khalid Bahah, a politician respected across the country’s spectrum of factions, called on Al Houthi forces to stop advances on cities and heed a UN Security Council demand for an end to fighting, local media reported.
Bahah’s comments, made during a visit to the Yemeni embassy in Saudi Arabia, coincided with coalition warplanes bombing the runway at Sana’a airport after an Iranian plane defied a blockade on Yemeni airspace.
“The brothers in Ansar Allah are called on to fear God with the Yemeni people and stop their war on the cities,” Yemeni news website www.voice-yemen.com reported, referring to the Al Houthi group by its official name.
“Everybody must realise that the UN Security Council resolution 2216 created a framework to end the conflict and that any initiative or dialogue would be for a mechanism to implement this resolution,” he added.
The Al Houthis have rejected the resolution, which imposes an arms embargo on the group and on supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and demands the Ansar Allah group drop its weapons and quit cities, including the capital Sana’a, it captured since September, Other Yemeni news websites, including barakish.net, also carried the remarks.
Yemen had been in crisis since Al Houthis advanced on Sana’a in September last year and demanded to be involved in plans to restructure the political system and to fight corruption. Bahah is popular among many of Yemen’s feuding parties, and his appointment earlier this month has created hopes for a negotiated solution to the conflict.
Meanwhile heavy fighting between Iranian-allied Al Houthi militia and local tribesmen killed at least 15 people in Yemen’s oil-producing Marib province and an air strike targeted the home of a senior Al Houthi official, residents and tribal and medical sources said.
Iran’s irresponsible actions
In Saudi Arabia, Brigadier General Ahmad Al Assiri said a pilot of the Iranian plane dismissed the coalition’s warnings not to fly in to Sana’a airport after entering through an unauthorised route.
“This forced air forces to destroy the runway at Sana’a airport to prevent him from landing” and forced him to turn back to Iran, he told Al Arabiya television.
Planes flying to the Yemeni capital must pass through Saudi Arabia’s Bisha Domestic Airport in the south which is assigned with the duty to “search any plane going to Sana’a”, said Al Assiri.
This showed that there was “something not right” about the Iranian plane, he said, adding that “these are irresponsible actions” carried out in “defiance of blockade measures”.
A Sana’a airport official told AFP that coalition warplanes had bombed Sana’a airport in the afternoon after three planes carrying aid landed at the facility yesterday morning.
Al Assiri confirmed that planes bringing aid from Doctors Without Borders, the International Migration Organisation, and other humanitarian groups had landed in Sana’a yesterday.
However, with the runway now destroyed, planes carrying aid would be unable to land until it is repaired by Iranbacked Al Houthis who control the airport, as well as the capital.
Meanwhile, a Saudi soldier was killed and another wounded in a gunfight with the Houthis along the kingdom’s southern border with Yemen, according to a Saudi security official. No further details were given about where or when the fighting took place.
At least seven other Saudi soldiers have been killed in separate clashes this month along the Saudi-Yemen border. Saudi troops, including a new deployment from the kingdom’s National Guard, largely are positioned in the regions of Najran and Jizan.