Kerry Says Seeks Pause in Yemen War
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US Secretary of State John Kerry sought to secure a pause in Yemen war as he arrived in Saudi Arabia to meet with the king and other top officials, citing increased shortages of food, fuel and medicine that are adding to an ongoing crisis in the Arab country.
At a news conference in Djibouti, a nearby African nation that he visited on his way to the kingdom, Kerry claimed the United States was deeply concerned by the worsening humanitarian conditions in Yemen.
He spoke just a boat trip away from the scene of the fighting, where Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries are continuing their month-and-a-half-long aggression.
Those suffering under Saudi-led bombings are Yemeni civilians. Aid groups say they're struggling to reach millions of people in need in what was the Arabian Peninsula's most impoverished state even before the war. With no end to the violence in sight, agencies are doing contingency planning for a prolonged conflict that prompts well over 100,000 Yemenis fleeing for abroad.
"The situation is getting more dire by the day," Reuters quoted Kerry as telling reporters.
In Riyadh, Kerry met late Wednesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. He'll see King Salman Thursday.
The discussions are taking place as the Houthis consolidated their hold over parts of the southern port city of Aden after heavy fighting with a militia loyal to the fugitive president. Houthis captured the area's presidential palace, officials said, in another sign of their resilience in the face of Saudi-led airstrikes.
More strikes Wednesday throughout the country killed dozens of people, according to security officials.
Several humanitarian organizations have openly or implicitly criticized the Saudi government for blocking air, land and sea routes into Yemen.
Kerry said he believed a break in the fighting could be arranged in the coming days, mentioning telephone conversations he had this week with the Saudi foreign minister and that of "another country".
Even a temporary halt to the fight "would be welcome news to the world," Kerry said. However, he stressed that any arrangement must entail conditions so no party to the conflict uses the moratorium to seize territory or otherwise gain an advantage, which could set back the humanitarian cause even further.
Yemen has long suffered from desperate poverty, political dysfunction and al-Qaeda's most lethal branch.
On March 26, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies began to militarily interfere in Yemen's internal affairs by launching 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.
The Saudi-led coalition announced on April 21 that its military operation "Decisive Storm" has ended, but hours later, air strikes and ground fighting resumed.
According to the spokesman of the Yemeni Army, the Saudi-led war on the Arab country has killed 2,051 people, most of them civilians.
