Yemen’s Foreign Minister Hisham Sharaf has warned of the dangers of slander as perpetrated by the spokesman of the Saudi-led aggression coalition regarding the ports of Hodeidah, which are meant to pave the way for targeting the civilian port.
In a letter he addressed to the President of the UN Security Council for the month of January, Norway’s Ambassador Mona Juul, and the General Secretaries of the United Nations and the European Union, Sharaf said “Any ship entering the port of Hodeidah has obtained a prior permit from the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM). Despite this, the US-Saudi aggression forces are detaining ships loaded with oil derivatives and domestic gas and preventing them from entering the port.”
He pointed out that this escalation is similar to the recent attacks on Sana’a International Airport, indicating that the Saudi allegations that the ports of Hodeidah were exploited for arms smuggling operations “are nothing but a justification for a premeditated intention to destroy these ports, which are the main artery for entering 80 percent of the Yemeni people’s needs of food, fuel, and humanitarian aid.”
In the letter, Sharaf indicated that “the aggression against Yemen will enter its eighth year in the coming weeks, and the Saudi regime must seize any opportunity available to achieve peace, stop the military aggression, lift all forms of siege, and sit at the dialogue table to discuss all issues of concern to the two countries.”
The Foreign Minister also called on Riyadh to “stop its funding for armed militias and outlaw armed groups that work to obstruct all efforts to bring peace, since this only makes the situation in the Arabian Peninsula and the southern Red Sea more unstable and poses a threat to the international peace and security.”
Hisham Sharaf furthermore stressed the importance of the UN Security Council assume its responsibilities in maintaining international peace and security by taking several basic steps that pave the way for peace, including stopping the continuous threats made by the aggression coalition and its daily bombing of civilian objects. Furthermore, he asked the Council to work in order to “protect the Yemeni people from terrorism and crimes of the Saudi regime and its allies.”
The letter called on the Security Council to issue a resolution binding on all parties to “stop the aggressive war and end the comprehensive siege on Yemen.”
