Spokesman’:

Saudi FM’s Claim on Iran’s Role in Yemen Peace Efforts ‘Ridiculous

TEHRAN (defapress) – Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi dismissed as “ridiculous” a recent claim by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister that the Islamic Republic was blocking peace efforts in Yemen, which has been the target of a Saudi-led war for over two years and a half.

News ID: 66762

Date: 30 October 2017 - 14:05

"The claim by the Saudi foreign minister that Iran has been hampering all peace efforts to the Yemen conflict is ridiculous and baseless,” Qassemi said late on Sunday.

In his opening remarks at a recent meeting of foreign ministers and military chiefs of a Saudi-led coalition waging war on the impoverished country, Adel al-Jubeir claimed, "Iran has been hampering all efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Yemen conflict, which has led to the failure of all political talks between the legitimate Yemeni government and the militants.”

The Iranian spokesman added that the Islamic Republic condemned the Saudi-led aggression against the impoverished Arab country in the first hours of attack and called for a halt to it.

Stressing that there is no military solution to the Yemeni crisis, Qassemi said Iran would make every effort to put an end to this "bloody” and "despicable” war that has claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people, including women and children.

He further emphasized that the crisis could be only solved through a halt of war, deployment of humanitarian aid supplies, and all-inclusive talks among all parties in the war-torn country.

Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by the coalition for more than two years but Riyadh has reached none of its objectives in Yemen so far.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Over 12,000 Yemenis, including thousands of women and children, have lost their lives in the deadly military campaign.