UAE blasts at Iran over Yemen situation

Abu Dhabi: The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday blasted at Iran for destabilising the entire Arabian Peninsula with its arm and political support to Al Houthi in Yemen and other militants in the region.

Addressing a joint press conference, Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Foreign Minister along with his Yemeni counterpart Dr Riyadh Yaseen, said Tehran was deliberately destabilising the region with exports of militant activities.

“Iran has attacked at us at our home in Yemen where our roots are. Tehran is fully and openly supporting the Al Houti militants in Yemen where they have taken arms against a legitimate government and the people and created a chaos. We will not tolerate this and will fight the AL Houthi militants at all fronts along with our brother states in the region, particularly the GCC,” Shaikh Abdullah told a press conference in a very strong worded statement.

The UAE Foreign Minister further added that all the regional countries are united support the legitimate Yemeni Government their people.

“We have made all efforts at all levels – from the UN Security Council to regional level talks – to bring the Al Houthi militants to cooperate and stop their aggressive moves in Yemen with the help of  Iran, but they have ignored all our these reconciliatory efforts. We are determined to provide all kinds of support – from military to relief assistance – to our Yemeni brothers,” he said.

Shaikh Abdullah also said Iran was involved in creating disturbing situation around the entire region - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Iraq.

On his part, Dr Yaseen said the Yemeni authorities have confiscated lots of arms and ammunitions, including sophisticated weapons coming from Iran for Al Houthi militants. “We have also arrested a number Iranian intelligence agency spies and agents arriving in Yemen achieve their goal of destabilising the state and creating ethnic, sectarian and political differences among the people,” the Yemeni Foreign Minister told reporters in the UAE capital.

nissar@khaleejtimes.com