ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates condemned the “occupation” of its embassy in Sanaa by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the foreign ministry said in a statement demanding their immediate exit from the compound.
The embassy takeover comes as Yemeni loyalists backed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia continue advances against rebels in several southern provinces as well as in third city Taez, seen as a gateway to the rebel-held capital.
“This act is further evidence that the group that committed this attack does not show any regard or respect for international conventions and diplomatic norms, as it practices the law of the jungle,” said a statement published late Monday by the official WAM news agency.
It “condemned in the strongest possible terms” the rebel storming of the embassy, which it said took place on Sunday.
The foreign ministry “stressed that the occupation of the embassy and the eviction of its staff will not deter the UAE’s support for the restoration of stability to sisterly Yemen.”
The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, of which the UAE is a member, also released a statement condemning the “cowardly act.”
The Houthi rebels, allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, seized the Yemeni capital in September last year.
They consolidated their grip on power in February, prompting an exodus of foreign diplomats from the capital.
The UAE shut its embassy in Sanaa and announced it would open another in southern city Aden, which was later the scene of intense fighting between local government supporters and the rebels before loyalists retook the city in mid-July.
It is unclear how many employees were at the Sanaa embassy and if it had been operational when it was stormed.
Saudi-owned newspaper Al-Hayat has reported that 1,500 troops, most of them from the UAE, had entered Aden in support of loyalists.
Official Emirati media says that six UAE soldiers have so far been killed in incidents linked to the Yemen fighting.
The UAE is also part of a Saudi-led coalition that launched an air war against the rebels on March 26.
Battle for Hodeida
On Tuesday, Coalition warplanes hit the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeida, destroying cranes and warehouses in the main entry point for aid supplies to Yemen’s north.
Rival factions also battled further south overnight in Yemen’s third city, Taiz, Arab television stations reported, as local militias opposed to the Houthis attempted to consolidate recent advances on it.
Loyalist forces, backed by Gulf Arab planes, weapons and training, have been on the offensive since breaking out of Aden last month, claiming a string of gains against the Houthis.
The war has killed more than 4,300 people, many of them civilians, and spread disease and hunger in one of the Arab world’s poorest states.
Hodeida, lying about 150 km (95 miles) due west of Sanaa, has become a focal point of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, which the International Committee of the Red Cross said last week was critical.
UAE condemns Houthi takeover of embassy in Yemen
UAE condemns Houthi takeover of embassy in Yemen
High-level Turkish team to visit Damascus on Monday for talks on SDF integration
- The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal
ANKARA: A high-level Turkish delegation will visit Damascus on Monday to discuss bilateral ties and the implementation of a deal for integrating the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into Syria’s state apparatus, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said.
The visit by Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministers and its intelligence chief comes amid efforts by Syrian, Kurdish and US officials to show some progress with the deal. But Ankara accuses the SDF of stalling ahead of a year-end deadline.
Turkiye views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the agreement.
Last week Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara hoped to avoid resorting to military action against the SDF but that its patience was running out.
The Foreign Ministry source said Fidan, Defense Minister Yasar Guler and the head of Turkiye’s MIT intelligence agency, Ibrahim Kalin, would attend the talks in Damascus, a year after the fall of former President Bashar Assad.
TURKEY SAYS ITS NATIONAL SECURITY IS AT STAKE
The source said the integration deal “closely concerned Turkiye’s national security priorities” and the delegation would discuss its implementation. Turkiye has said integration must ensure that the SDF’s chain of command is broken.
Sources have previously told Reuters that Damascus sent a proposal to the SDF expressing openness to reorganizing the group’s roughly 50,000 fighters into three main divisions and smaller brigades as long as it cedes some chains of command and opens its territory to other Syrian army units.
Turkiye sees the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and says it too must disarm and dissolve itself, in line with a disarmament process now underway between the Turkish state and the PKK.
Ankara has conducted cross-border military operations against the SDF in the past. It accuses the group of wanting to circumvent the integration deal and says this poses a threat to both Turkiye and the unity of Syria.
