Yemen blames its civil war on Iran
Foreign minister says Tehran can’t be part of solution as it continues to supply Al Houthis with weapons
Yemen’s foreign minister blamed Iran and its support for Al Houthi rebels on Monday for causing the country’s civil war and said it can’t be part of the solution.
Abdul Malek Al Mekhlafi said at a press conference that Iranian weapons are still being smuggled into Yemen.
Saudi Arabia’s UN ambassador, Abdullah Al Mouallimi, whose country supports Yemen’s internationallyrecognised government, said Iran isn’t a neighbour or part of the Arabian Peninsula and he had a more direct message: “Iran should get the hell out of the area, period.”
The Saudi and Yemeni officials spoke to reporters after a presentation to UN diplomats on the path to peace and humanitarian aid to Yemen.
Yemen, which is on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has been engulfed in civil war since September 2014, when Al Houthis swept into the capital of Sana’a and overthrew President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s internationally-recognised government.
In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition began a campaign in support of Hadi’s government and against Al Houthi forces allied with ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Since then, the Iranian-backed Al Houthis have been dislodged from most of the south, but remain in control of Sana’a and much of the north.
The war in Yemen has killed over 10,000 civilians and displaced three million people. UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said Friday that 17 million Yemenis don’t know where their next meal is coming from, nearly seven million are facing the threat of famine and almost 16 million lack access to clean water and sanitation.
The World Health Organisation said last week that 2,000 people have been killed and an estimated 500,000 infected in a cholera outbreak.
Al Mekhlafi said that “the Yemeni government ... will not be an obstruction to peace.” But he said the Al Houthis and Saleh “cannot monopolise power.”
The two diplomats reiterated Yemeni and Saudi support for a proposal by UN envoy Esmail Ould Shaikh Ahmad to reopen Sana’a airport for commercial flights and to hand over the port of Hodeidah to a committee of “respected Yemeni security and economic figures” that would use the port revenues to pay civil servants. The Al Houthis have not accepted the proposal, but Ould Shaikh Ahmad said Friday he hopes their leaders will accept his invitation to meet in a third country to discuss the proposals.
Looking ahead, Yemen’s foreign minister predicted that “in the end,” the parties will get to the place where they started — when at the end of a national dialogue in January 2014 all political parties agreed on a road map for a political transition. But unfortunately, to get there Yemenis will have “paid a high price for peace,” he said.