Iran Urges Serious, Prompt UN Action to Stop War on Yemen
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An Iranian deputy foreign minister called on the United Nations to ramp up efforts to put an immediate end to Saudi-led military strikes on Yemen, describing the campaign as a move against humanity.
In a telephone conversation with the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed on Friday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for African and Middle Eastern Affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian urged serious UN efforts to stop the Saudi-led war against Yemen and lift a siege laid to people of the country.
He also slammed the military campaign as crimes against humanity, and called on the UN to take serious action on the basis of its Charter to prevent such acts of aggression in the world.
The Iranian diplomat once again called for Yemeni-Yemeni talks without foreign interference, and said the talks would be the sole way out of conflicts in the Arab country.
Cheikh Ahmed, for his part, expressed optimism about success of a political approach to the Yemeni problems following his consultations with the Yemeni groups and the Ansarullah movement.
On March 26, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies began to launch deadly air strikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to the fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
According to Yemen's Freedom House Foundation, the Saudi airstrikes have claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Yemeni people so far while more than 7,000 others have been wounded, most of them civilians.
Meanwhile, the UN is planning to convene peace talks between Yemen's warring factions in Geneva on June 14.
