Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday there was no military solution to the escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, after both sides traded attacks.
“We believe that there is no military solution to the issue of Yemen, Bab al-Mandab, and other regional issues,” said Araghchi in an interview published on Saturday by the state-run Iran Daily newspaper, calling for “dialogue”.
He said the situation in Yemen “cannot be attributed to Iran” and that the incidents in the Bab al-Mandab Strait were “rooted in old disputes and issues between Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the countries of the region”.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei made similar remarks, expressing Tehran’s readiness to facilitate any talks between the two sides.
Renewed conflict between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia — which had largely been frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022 — flared up this month when the rebels declared a blockade of Saudi ports and claiming attacks on tankers.
The blockade has threatened Saudi Arabia’s ability to get its supplies to the world following Iran’s parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the kingdom’s only other maritime route.
“Returning to the path of dialogue and the full implementation of the agreed roadmap is the only way to end the suffering of the Yemeni people and maintain security and stability in the region,” Baqaei said.
In December 2023, Saudi Arabia and the Houthis committed to a peace process, but this unravelled during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, when the rebels struck targets in Israel and international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
On Friday, a Houthi spokesman insisted the rebels were not blocking all traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and that the maritime blockade “only affects the Saudi side”.
AFP
