Yemenis walk on a damaged street following a Saudi air raid on a nearby missile depot on Fajj Attan hill in southern Sana’a, on April 20, 2015. ©AFP
Yemenis walk on a damaged street following a Saudi air raid on a nearby missile depot on Fajj Attan hill in southern Sana’a, on April 20, 2015. ©AFP
A high-ranking Iranian official says any peace talks in Yemen should exclude those who have played a role in the bloodshed in the Arab country.
“In the national dialogue and political process in Yemen, those will be present who do not have the blood of the Yemeni people on their hands and had no role in recent crimes against the Yemeni people,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, said on Wednesday.
The senior Iranian diplomat lashed out at Saudi Arabia for launching “a futile 27-day aggression against the defenseless Yemeni people,” saying the move marked another “black stain” in Riyadh’s regional conduct.
He added, however, that the Yemeni people’s “steadfastness and resistance” against the Saudi aggression was “a new turning point in regional developments.”
“The crime against and massacre of the Yemeni people has exposed Saudi Arabia to numerous negative consequences,” he said, adding that the contribution made by the United States to the Saudi attacks turned “a new dark page in the US dossier in the region.”
The Iranian official stated that Iran has done its utmost to bring an end to the violent Saudi aggression and to prevent a human catastrophe, vowing that Tehran will stand beside the Yemeni people.
Amir-Abdollahian said Iran’s foremost priority is to provide medicine to those in need in Yemen and to immediately relocate the wounded for treatment.
Saudi Arabia launched it air campaign against Yemen on March 26 – without a United Nations mandate – in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and to restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
Late on Tuesday, Riyadh announced the end of the first phase of its unlawful military operation, which claimed the lives of more than 950 people in 27 days.