Interview: Yemeni info minister says world must push Houthis to break with Iran, accept peace

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Updated 27 March 2022
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Interview: Yemeni info minister says world must push Houthis to break with Iran, accept peace

  • In exclusive interview, minister says Yemenis “disappointed” by US decision to delist Houthis from terror list
  • Al-Eryani deplores rights groups’ silence on Houthi crimes, including deadly Sanaa migrant camp fire

RIYADH: Members of the international community with open channels to Yemen’s Houthi militia must use their leverage to encourage it to sever ties with Iran and commit to the Saudi-led peace initiative, a senior Yemeni Cabinet minister has said. 

Moammar Al-Eryani, Yemen’s minister for information, culture and tourism, issued the appeal in an exclusive interview with Arab News, adding he was under no illusions about the role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG), in particular its extraterritorial Quds Force, in the Houthis’ ongoing military offensive in Marib and its attacks on civilian facilities and commercial shipping. 

“Although we understand that the Houthi militia is merely a dirty tool to carry out the Iranian agenda of targeting Saudi Arabia, spreading chaos and terrorism in the region and threatening commercial ships and international shipping lanes, we call on countries that are communicating with the Houthis to play a constructive role,” Al-Eryani said. 

He added these countries should pressure the militia to “drop Iranian guardianship over its political and military decisions,” to “immediately halt its military escalation in Marib,” and to “immediately and unconditionally respond to the initiative made by our brothers in Saudi Arabia. 

“These countries must put pressure on the Houthis to stop their daily crimes and violations against civilians in their areas of control, which are considered war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said. 

Tehran installed Quds Force officer Hassan Irloo as its ambassador in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in Oct. 2020, making Iran the only nation to officially recognize and appoint formal representation to the Houthis. Irloo, a Quds Force veteran, has been sanctioned by the US Treasury for his role in the supply of advanced weaponry to the Houthis. 

The militia, which has control of most of Yemen’s north, has been battling forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s internationally recognized government with funding and weaponry provided by Iran as part of its proxy campaign across the Middle East. 

The military and financial support given by Iran to the Houthis has been an open secret from long before the militia’s takeover of Sanaa in 2015. The general consensus of security analysts is that Tehran’s malign influence has fanned the flames of war, undermined numerous peace attempts and contributed to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

The US State Department listed the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on Jan. 19 in one of the final acts of the Trump administration in its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. 

However, with the Biden administration reversing the FTO designation on Feb. 15 with the stated objective of easing the humanitarian situation in the country, the Houthis have ratcheted up their assaults on Yemeni government forces, and targeting of Saudi population centers and civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones. 




Newly recruited Houthi fighters take part in a gathering in the capital Sanaa to mobilize more fighters to battlefronts in several Yemeni cities. (AFP file photo)

“The decision of the US administration to delist the Houthis as a terrorist organization has disappointed Yemenis, who saw it as encouraging the militia to carry out more crimes and violations against civilians,” Al-Eryani said. 

“They also saw it as giving the Houthis a free hand to launch a military offensive in Marib province, to increase the frequency of terrorist attacks on civilians and vital installations in Saudi Arabia, and to threaten the security and stability of global energy supplies, as well as international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandab.” 

Al-Eryani said the terror-delisting decision ignored the truth about the Houthis’ association with the IRGC, as well as “their extremist views, hostile slogans and criminal practices against civilians in their areas of control, which are no different from those of other terrorist groups.” 

The Houthis’ disregard for civilian lives was further demonstrated on March 7 when scores of Ethiopian migrants kept in a detention camp in Sanaa were burned alive after teargas canisters and flash bangs fired by guards caused a fire. 

For Al-Eryani, the only thing worse than the atrocity itself was the silence of normally outspoken rights groups and the international community. 

“Unfortunately, the horrific crime for which the Houthi terrorist militia claimed responsibility, killing and injuring dozens of African migrants in a deliberate fire in one of the detention camps, has not received much attention from the international community or international human rights organizations, except for a few timid statements,” Al-Eryani said. 




Moammar Al- Eryani (right) being interviewed by Arab News’ Mohammed Al-Sulami. 

“This shameful and unjustified international silence regarding the crimes and violations of the Houthi militia is not limited to just this incident. Consider the thousands of crimes and violations committed by the militia in cold blood against innocent women, children and the elderly, including the attempt to target the government at Aden International Airport.” 

According to diplomats, an investigation by a UN team of experts has found that the Houthis were responsible for that Dec. 30 attack, which killed at least 22 people and injured dozens more. Missiles landed just as Yemeni government officials arrived at the airport to join members of the Southern Transitional Council in a new cabinet as part of a Saudi-led reconciliation effort. The dead included government officials and three ICRC staff members. 

According to Al-Eryani, since their emergence in the Saada governorate in the early 2000s, the Houthis have perpetrated all sorts of crimes against defenseless civilians, including: “Killings and kidnappings; forced disappearances; psychological and physical torture; assaults on women in secret detention centers; looting of public and private properties; bombing of opposition houses and mosques; child soldier recruitment; compulsory conscription of civilians and refugees; planting of land and sea mines, and attacks on commercial vessels and oil tankers in international sea corridors.” 

Saudi Arabia has led repeated attempts to reach a comprehensive resolution between the Houthis and the Yemeni government. The latest attempt came on March 22, when it announced a wide-ranging initiative that calls for a UN-supervised nationwide ceasefire, the reopening of Sanaa airport, and new talks to end the conflict. 

Al-Eryani believes it is Iran’s influence over the Houthis that has stalled progress on the plan. 

“The Saudi initiative came at an important and crucial time to clearly reveal the role played by Tehran in undermining efforts to bring peace to Yemen, and the role of Irloo as the de-facto ruler in Sanaa. Irloo controls the political and military decisions of the Houthi militia,” Al-Eryani said. 

Negotiations being necessarily a two-way street, Al-Eryani says the Yemeni government has already shown it is willing to make concessions. “During the rounds of consultations with the Houthis under the auspices of the UN, the government made many concessions to stop the bloodshed and end the suffering of Yemenis,” Al-Eryani said. “But the Houthis dealt with these concessions with indifference and exploited them to regroup and compensate for its human losses, and also to amass weapons smuggled from Iran such as ballistic missiles and drones for military re-escalation and in an attempt to impose its coup.” 




The FSO safer is being used by Houthis as a time bomb and a means to blackmail the international community. (File photo)

In addition to the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the international community has urgent business in the form of the FSO Safer — an abandoned oil tanker moored off Yemen’s western coast. Unless the Houthis allow urgent repairs to take place, the vessel’s payload — 48 million gallons of oil — could spill into the Red Sea, devastating the environment and coastal fishing communities. 

While announcing the Kingdom’s latest peace initiative in Riyadh, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, described the dilapidated ship as a “ticking time bomb” in view of its potentially destructive ecological impact. 

“The Saudi foreign minister’s description is very accurate,” said Al-Eryani. “The Houthis are using the FSO Safer as a time bomb and a means to blackmail and pressure the international community for political and material gains. Unfortunately, the Houthis are not interested in the looming environmental, economic and humanitarian disaster.” 

Expressing the Yemeni government’s concerns on the FSO Safer issue, Al-Eryani said: “We call on the international community, primarily the member states of the UN Security Council to put pressure on the Houthis to immediately and unconditionally implement the agreements with the UN, and to allow the technical team to assess the status of the Safer and avoid a disaster that will have serious consequences for all Red Sea countries and will affect the region and the world.” 

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Twitter: @md_sulami


Israel to abolish free trade deal with Turkiye in retaliation

Updated 17 May 2024
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Israel to abolish free trade deal with Turkiye in retaliation

  • Earlier this month, Turkiye said it was stopping exports to Israel during the duration of the Israel-Hamas war

JERUSALEM: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday said Israel would abolish its free trade agreement with Turkiye and also impose a 100 percent tariff on other imports from Turkiye in retaliation for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to halt exports to Israel.
The plan, he said, would be submitted to the cabinet for approval.
Earlier this month, Turkiye said it was stopping exports to Israel during the duration of the Israel-Hamas war, citing “worsening humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territories. But the Turkish Trade Ministry has said that companies have three months to fulfil existing orders via third countries.
“His (Erdogan’s) announcement of the stoppage of imports to Israel constitutes a declaration of an economic boycott and a serious violation of international trade agreements to which Turkiye has committed,” Smotrich said in a statement.
He noted that Israel’s actions would only last as long as Erdogan remained in power.
“If at the end of Erdogan’s term the citizens of Turkiye elect a leader who is sane and not a hater of Israel, it would be possible to return the trade route with Turkiye,” Smotrich said.
Under Smotrich’s plan, all the reduced customs rates applicable to goods imported from Turkiye to Israel according to an agreement to the free trade deal would be abolished. At the same time, a duty would be imposed on any product imported from Turkiye to Israel at a rate of 100 percent of the value of the goods in addition to the existing duty rate.
The finance, economy and foreign ministries, the statement said, would also take steps to strengthen Israel’s manufacturing while diversifying sources of import to reduce the dependency on Turkiye.
Israel’s Manufacturers’ Association called Smotrich’s plan “an appropriate response” for not allowing Erdogan to damage the economy without a response.


Measured support for end of UN mission in Iraq

Updated 17 May 2024
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Measured support for end of UN mission in Iraq

UNITED NATIONS: Several members of the UN Security Council, including Russia and China, on Thursday backed Baghdad’s request for the world body’s political mission in Iraq to shut down by next year — but Washington did not immediately offer its support.
Last week, in a letter to the council, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani called for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which has been operational since 2003, to end by December 31, 2025.
Iraq’s deputy UN envoy Abbas Kadhom Obaid Al-Fatlawi reiterated the request before the council on Thursday, saying: “The mission has achieved its goals.”
Russian envoy Vasily Nebenzia shared that view, saying “Iraqis are ready to take responsibility for the political future of their country.”
“The remaining problems should not become an excuse for UNAMI to stay in the country indefinitely,” he added.
Within the framework of the mission’s annual renewal, due at the end of May, the council should “propose a plan... in order to ensure its gradual drawdown and smooth transition toward an ultimate withdrawal,” noted China’s deputy UN envoy Geng Shuang.
Given that UN missions can only operate with the host nation’s consent, Britain and France also voiced support for a transition in the partnership between Iraq and the UN.
The US was more vague, with ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield saying UNAMI still had “important work to do,” and making no mention of Baghdad’s request.
She emphasized the mission’s key role on several important political issues, such as support for organizing elections and promoting human rights, even though Iraq has clearly asked that the mission focus more squarely on economic issues.
In an evaluation requested by the council, German diplomat Volker Perthes said in March that UNAMI, which had more than 700 staff as of late 2023, “in its present form, appears too big.”
Perthes called on the mission to “begin to transition its tasks to national institutions and the United Nations country team in a responsible, orderly and gradual manner within an agreed time frame.”
Without commenting on Baghdad’s request, mission chief Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert painted a picture of an Iraq that “looks different to the country to which UNAMI was first deployed some 20 years ago.”
“Today we are, so to speak, witnessing an Iraq on the rise,” she said, while noting multiple challenges yet unresolved, such as corruption and armed groups operating outside state control.
But she added: “I do believe it is high time to judge the country on progress made, and to turn the page on the darker images of Iraq’s past.”


ICRC officials to meet UK Foreign Office over plan for Palestinian detainees

Updated 17 May 2024
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ICRC officials to meet UK Foreign Office over plan for Palestinian detainees

  • David Cameron reportedly negotiated deal with Israel’s government to allow two British legal observers and Israeli judge to visit some prisoners

LONDON: Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross will hold talks with the UK Foreign Office over concerns about British plans to visit Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.

Foreign Secretary David Cameron has reportedly negotiated a deal with Israel’s government to allow two British legal observers and an Israeli judge to visit some prisoners being held in Israeli prisons amid reports of “inhumane treatment,” The Guardian reported on Thursday.

In an interview with the BBC at the weekend, Cameron said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the issue.

“It’s not all bleak ... I said it (the lack of access to detainees) was not good enough, that we needed to have a proper independent system for inspecting and regulating, and the Israelis have announced they are now doing that,” he said.

Netanyahu’s government has blocked ICRC staff from having any access to Palestinian detainees since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. It has said the block will remain until Hamas allows access to Israeli hostages taken during the attack.

Critics say this stance could constitute a breach of the Geneva Conventions, with the ICRC having made repeated requests to both sides in the conflict to allow access to all those detained, as set out in the conventions.

Observers have also raised concerns that the UK plan will “weaken the rule of law” and could set a “dangerous precedent” for how detainees are treated in other conflict zones, The Guardian report added.

The ICRC’s director for the Middle East region, Fabrizio Carboni, is in London to hold talks with Foreign Office officials.

In a statement to The Guardian, the aid organization said Palestinian detainees must be treated as protected persons with access to the ICRC, as proscribed under the Geneva rules.

The statement added: “We have seen the reports of a government of Israel decision to allow observers to visit some places of detention. The ICRC remains hopeful that suitable steps are taken that could protect the health and welfare of detainees, which remains paramount. We reiterate our readiness to resume our mandated detention activities.”

Arab News columnist and director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, Chris Doyle, said the Foreign Office plan risked establishing a system that bypassed the ICRC and internationally accepted regulations.

“There is no transparency about Cameron’s alternative … I very much doubt that two Foreign Office-appointed lawyers in the company of a judge from the occupying power are going to have the expertise of the ICRC, but will instead be taken around sanitised prisons,” he said.

“What has happened to the thousands of Palestinians taken from Gaza to Israel is a huge issue. (Neither) we nor their families know where they are, whether they are combatants or children, or why in some cases they are being stripped to their underpants. We have heard nothing from the UK government about this,” he added.

During a week-long truce between Hamas and Israeli forces in November, the ICRC played an active role in facilitating the swap of 105 Israeli hostages held by Hamas and 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.


Residents cower as fighting picks up in Sudan’s Al-Fashir

Updated 16 May 2024
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Residents cower as fighting picks up in Sudan’s Al-Fashir

CAIRO/DUBAI: Residents are fleeing missile fire and sheltering without food and water amid escalating fighting in the Sudanese city of Al-Fashir, witnesses and aid workers said, adding to fears of an all-out battle.
The city is the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the western Darfur region. Its capture would be a major boost for the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as regional and international powers try to push the sides to negotiate an end to a 13-month war.
Locals and aid workers fear the clashes could also lead to a new round of bloodletting after ethnically-driven violence blamed on the RSF and its allies elsewhere in Darfur last year.
Many of Al-Fashir’s 1.6 million residents arrived during the violence between Arabs and non-Arabs that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the early-2000s. The RSF’s origins lie in the Arab janjaweed militias accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide then.
In recent weeks the RSF has almost surrounded Al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur state, while soldiers from the army and allied non-Arab armed groups fill the city.
In a sign of mounting ethnic tensions, Mini Minnawi, head of one of the groups, said on X he had made a wide call for fighters to come and defend Al-Fashir, in response to what he said was a similar call by the RSF.
Al-Fashir residents report snipers, stray missiles and army air strikes causing fires in the east and north of the city. Many civilians have taken up arms.
“The situation in the city has been difficult the past few days. Missiles from both sides are falling inside neighborhoods and homes, and getting to hospitals is dangerous,” said 38-year-old resident Hussein Adam.
Medical aid agency MSF said on Thursday that the city’s South Hospital had seen 489 casualties since May 10, including 64 deaths, though it said the real toll was far higher.
Another hospital it supports, which saw 27 people killed last weekend, was forced to shut down after an army air strike 50 meters away, MSF said.
The RSF and army blame each other for the violence.
On Wednesday, the United States imposed sanctions on two top RSF commanders, including the force’s head of operations, for the attacks on Al-Fashir.
“We are prepared to take further action against those who actively escalate this war – including any offensive actions on El Fasher – create barriers to humanitarian access, or commit atrocities,” US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield posted on X.
Experts have raised warnings of impending famine in the displacement camps that dot Al-Fashir. The city also suffers from water shortages, network outages, and high prices.
In one of those camps, Abu Shouk in the north of the city, nine people were killed by stray missiles, camp leaders said on Sunday.
Residents say displaced people from eastern neighborhoods are sheltering under trees and in open squares.
“Most families have moved west, women and children with nothing to eat or drink,” said resident Mohamed Jamal, a volunteer with the local emergency response room.
The army has so far insisted that international aid delivered via Chad for other parts of Darfur pass through Al-Fashir, something that the escalating violence prevents.
Carl Skau, Chief Operating Officer of the World Food Programme, said the agency had trucks ready in the Chadian border town of Tina, but they needed to be able to move soon.
“The window is closing, the rains are coming and we need action in the next couple of weeks,” he told Reuters after a trip to Port Sudan where he tried to negotiate with the army for better access this week.
The UN’s World Food Programme expects more people are being driven to the brink of starvation in other parts of Sudan worst affected by the war including the capital Khartoum, El Gezira state and the Kordofan regions.
“We really need to step up a concerted effort to avoid an even worse catastrophe,” Skau said.


US military says aid pier anchored to Gaza beach

Updated 16 May 2024
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US military says aid pier anchored to Gaza beach

  • The US Central Command said the pier was “successfully affixed to the beach in Gaza” with around 500 tons of aid expected to enter the Palestinian territory in the coming days
  • “It’s a pretty substantial amount, and it’s spread out over multiple ships right now,” Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy CENTCOM commander, told reporters

JERUSALEM: US troops on Thursday anchored a long-awaited temporary pier aimed at ramping up emergency aid to a beach in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, the US military and Israel said.
The US Central Command said the pier was “successfully affixed to the beach in Gaza” with around 500 tons of aid expected to enter the Palestinian territory in the coming days.
“It’s a pretty substantial amount, and it’s spread out over multiple ships right now,” Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy CENTCOM commander, told reporters in Washington.
Israel’s military also said in a statement that the connection was “successfully completed.”
But Farhan Haq, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said negotiations remained ongoing on distribution of the aid — particularly on the safety of workers.
“We are finalizing our operational plans to make sure that we’re ready to handle it once the floating dock is properly functioning, while ensuring the safety of our staff,” he said.
The Gaza war has been devastating for aid workers. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which Israel accuses of bias, has alone lost 188 Gaza staff, according to UN figures.
Asked about the concerns, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said the United States was working with the United Nations on practicalities but added: “From our point of view, we believe that this is ready to go and for aid to start flowing as soon as possible.”
US President Joe Biden announced the emergency pier in March to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned of famine with virtually the entire population of 2.4 million displaced by the Israeli military action in response to the October 7 Hamas attack.
Built at a cost of at least $320 million, the project is extraordinary in that such massive humanitarian efforts by the United States are usually in response to actions by hostile countries, not a US ally.
The humanitarian assistance is being screened in Cyprus and loaded by truck. Once on land, it will “move quickly,” being offloaded from the coast into Gaza within hours, Cooper said, adding that “thousands of tons of aid are in the pipeline.”
He said that around 1,000 US soldiers and sailors were involved in the operation but that they would not take part in delivery, which will be led by the UN.
The war began after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s military retaliation has killed at least 35,272 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
The UN has argued that opening up land crossing points and allowing more trucks convoys into Gaza is the only way to stem the spiralling humanitarian crisis.
But the primary crossing into Gaza, on the territory’s border with Egypt, has been closed for days.
Israeli troops took over the Palestinian side of the crossing last week as the military threatened a wider assault on the southern city, defying warnings from the United States and others over the fate of some 1.4 million civilians who had been sheltering there.
“Of course we’re thankful to the US for all the work they’ve done in creating the floating dock. However, getting aid to people in need into and across Gaza cannot and should not depend on a floating dock far from where needs are most acute,” Haq said.
Cyprus, the Mediterranean island nation that is the departure point for aid on the planned maritime corridor, said US ship James A. Loux left Wednesday, carrying relief supplies and technical equipment.
Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said that “new departures are expected, transporting humanitarian aid including food items, medical supplies, hygiene and temporary shelter.”
Britain, meanwhile, said its initial contribution of nearly 100 tons of “shelter coverage kits” figured in the first shipment.
The pier will begin with facilitating the delivery of around 90 truckloads of international aid into Gaza each day, before volumes are scaled up to 150 truckloads daily, a British statement said.