Iran’s Zarif Deplores US Policy on Saudi War against Yemen
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the US’ hypocritical policy on the ongoing Saudi-led war on Yemen, saying Washington has given carte blanche to the invaders to kill thousands of Yemenis but terms the impoverished nation’s retaliatory attacks ‘an act of war”.
“Arab blood vs. Arab oil / A primer on US policy: - 4 yrs of indiscriminate bombardment of Yemen -100,000 dead Yemenis - 20M malnourished Yemenis - 2.3M cholera cases = carte blanche for culprits,” Zarif said on his Twitter account on Friday.
“Retaliatory Yemeni strike on oil storage tanks = unacceptable ‘act of war’,” he added in his tweet.
It came after Yemeni armed forces conducted a large-scale operation against Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil installations on Saturday, in response to the Saudi-led war on their country.
In another tweet also on Friday, Zarif questioned the US plans for a coalition for “peaceful resolution” in the Middle East while listing repeated Iranian diplomatic initiatives to promote peace in the region.
“Coalition for Peaceful Resolution?,” the top diplomat said and listed eight diplomatic initiatives by Iran since 1985, including a peace plan for Yemen in 2015, and a regional non-aggression pact for the Persian Gulf region proposed earlier this year.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday that his country was seeking to build a “coalition aimed at achieving peace and a peaceful resolution”.
Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by the coalition for more than four 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.
Official UN figures say that more than 15,000 people have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led bombing campaign began.
The Saudi war has impacted over seven million children in Yemen who now face a serious threat of famine, according to UNICEF figures. Over 6,000 children have either been killed or sustained serious injuries since 2015, UN children’s agency said. The humanitarian situation in the country has also been exacerbated by outbreaks of cholera, polio, and measles.