Dubai: Saudi Arabia’s deputy defence minister on Wednesday blamed Yemen’s Al Houthi movement for a stalled peace deal in the main port of Hodeida, saying the Iran-backed group was ignoring the kingdom’s call for a political solution to the four-year war.
Saudi Arabia is leading a Western-backed Arab coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to restore the internationally-recognised government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, which was ousted from power in the capital Sana’a by the Al Houthis in late 2014.
“They are ignoring our calls for a political solution to this crisis,” Prince Khalid Bin Salman said at a security conference in Moscow, in his first comments on Yemen since becoming deputy defence minister in February.
The warring parties reached a deal at UN-sponsored talks in Sweden in December for a ceasefire and troop withdrawal from the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, a lifeline for millions of people.
The truce has largely held but the redeployment of forces has stalled with each side blaming the other for impeding the pact, the first major breakthrough in peace efforts in over four years aimed at paving the way for political negotiations.
Prince Khalid, a son of King Salman and a full younger brother of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, accused regional rival Iran of trying “to seize the Yemeni state” by supporting Al Houthis, who control Hodeida and most urban centres in Yemen.
