Tabnak – Three years after the start of Saudi Arabia’s invasion to Yemen, situation in the war-torn Arab country is still far from becoming stable. Meanwhile, the Saudis and their allies are continuing to blame Iran for the disaster they’ve made in Yemen. Iranian officials however have reacted to these claims.
In this vein, Tehran rejected France's accusation that Iran was sending weapons to Yemen, saying the EU's arming of Saudi Arabia and accusing others will prove futile.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi made the remarks on Thursday in response to French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's claim that Yemen’s Houthi fighters were "supplied with arms by Iran."
Qassemi described Le Drian's claim as "false and a big lie the repetition of which by some regional and extra-regional countries will not change the Islamic Republic of Iran's resolve to enlighten the world public opinion about one of the worst humanitarian disasters and war crimes in contemporary history and the oppression of Yemen's defenseless people."
"Arming the aggressor and accusing others will go nowhere and the awakened consciences of the world people will be the ultimate witnesses and judges," he said.
On the other hand, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has slammed the US for its unbridled support for Saudi Arabia in its war of aggression against Yemen, saying Washington is complicit in the world's biggest humanitarian disaster.
In a post on his official Twitter account on Thursday, Zarif said the role that the United States has so far played in fanning the flames of the Yemen war, including through supplying Saudi Arabia with bombs and refueling its warplanes, is apparently not enough for American rulers. By acknowledging involvement in managing brutal Saudi airstrikes, the US is complicit in the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster, he added.
The remarks came two days after Pentagon chief James Mattis said the US military was “doing the planning” of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen. “So this is a very dynamic sort of battlefield management,” he added.
Mattis further admitted US involvement in mid-air refueling of Saudi warplanes, claiming that the operation could help minimize civilian casualties in the war-torn country.
The Saudi aggression was launched in March 2015 in support of Yemen’s former Riyadh-friendly government and against the country’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective administration.
The offensive has, however, achieved neither of its goals despite the spending of billions of petrodollars and the enlisting of Saudi Arabia's regional and Western allies.
The Saudi-led campaign, which is accompanied by a land, aerial and naval blockade of Yemen, has so far killed and injured over 600,000 civilians, according to the latest figures released by the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights.
