Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has expressed Tehran’s support for intra-Yemeni peace talks meant to end more than four years of a bloody Riyadh-led war on the impoverished country.
Zarif said in a meeting with Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, on Sunday that the solution to Yemen’s crisis is political and the Islamic Republic backs Yemeni-Yemeni peace negotiations as well as the full implementation of a UN-brokered agreement reached in the Swedish capital city of Stockholm in 2018.
During the meeting, Iran's top diplomat voiced regret for the “grave humanitarian situation” in Yemen and expressed Tehran’s preparedness to deliver relief aid to the war-inflicted country.
Zarif also expressed sorrow over the killing of innocent Yemeni civilians and the years-long siege of the country, calling for an immediate halt to the Saudi-led aggression and removal of Yemen’s blockade.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, back to power and crushing Ansarullah.
A number of Western countries, the US, France and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the Saudi-led war has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.
The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.