US to Revoke Blacklisting of Yemen’s Ansarullah
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The US plans to revoke the terrorist designations on Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement that were put in place in the final months of the Trump administration, the State Department said on Friday night.
The reversal, confirmed by a State Department official, comes a day after President Joe Biden declared a halt to US support for the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen.
“Our action is due entirely to the humanitarian consequences of this last-minute designation from the prior administration, which the United Nations and humanitarian organizations have since made clear would accelerate the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” the official said, according to Reuters.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy welcomed the decision. “The designation ... stopped food and other critical aid from being delivered inside Yemen and would have prevented effective political negotiation,” he said in a statement.
The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of its people in need.
“We welcome the stated intention by the US administration to revoke the designation as it will provide profound relief to millions of Yemenis who rely on humanitarian assistance and commercial imports to meet their basic survival needs,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blacklisted the Houthis on Jan. 19 - a day before Biden took office.
The Trump administration exempted aid groups, the United Nations, the Red Cross and the export of agricultural commodities, medicine and medical devices from its designation. But UN officials and relief groups said the carve-outs were not enough and called for the designation to be revoked.
Since late 2014, the Houthi movement has been running state affairs, after former Riyadh-back president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi resigned and fled to the Saudi capital.
Months later, the Saudi regime and a number of its allies launched the deadly war on Yemen to reinstall Hadi, but the US-backed campaign has flatly failed in the face of stiff resistance by the Yemeni armed forces, led by the Houthis and allied popular groups.
