Defense Minister Rejects US Allegation of Iran Arms Support for Yemen
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami dismissed as a lie Washington’s allegation that the Islamic Republic is supplying arms to Yemen, saying that Tehran only provides spiritual support for the Arabian Peninsula country.
“Today, Yemen has become a thorn in the eye of the Americans,” Brigadier General Hatami said in a speech on Saturday.
The Americans are falsely accusing Iran of supporting the Yemenis militarily and say that Iranians did not allow them to gain victory in Yemen, he said.
“They (the Americans) think the Yemeni people’s resistance is because of Iran’s support but our support is spiritual,” the defense minister stated.
What leads to victory is the spirit of resistance of the nations who are not willing to give in to the oppressions of the Americans, he added.
The Trump administration on Thursday accused Iran of stepping up violations of a UN ban on arms exports by sending rockets and other weaponry to Afghanistan and Yemen.
Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by a coalition led by the Saudi regime for more than three-and-a-half 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.
The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then. The war and the accompanying blockade have also caused famine across Yemen.