[24/10/2017 09:35]

RIYADH-SABA
Yemen will not stabilize as long as Iran is keeping on arming the Houthi rebel militias, Foreign Minister Abdul-Malik al-Mekhlafi told the ambassadors of the G18 countries sponsoring peace in Yemen during a meeting in Riyadh on Monday.

"And things will not stabilize with an armed militia existing outside the state's control," he said. "We have confirmed information that new Iranian weapons have arrived to the Houthi militias' hands, among them missiles and drones. And that they had used Iranian missiles in previous attacks on Yemenis and Saudi territories."

He said that the militias "refuses to contact the UN Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh", calling on the international community pressure on them to re-communicate with him.

He said, "The Government's hand is extended for peace and supports the UN envoy's efforts as long as that will achieve a real peace and restore the state and its institutions."

He said that the Government has proved itself as a peace seeker in all the previous rounds of peace talks and its agreement to Ould Cheikh's proposal for "handing over the Hodeida seaport to a third party." "Although it suggests a third party in a matter of government's sovereign right that it could have held on to, but we conceded it for the sake of the people and the lifting of their suffering."

"In Kuwait we signed on Ould Cheikh's peace plan although it was not satisfactory. We had taken the advices of many friends [requesting concessions] and conceded, but the other party did not accept the plan and caused the Yemeni people's suffering to be extended further," he said.

As for the Sana'a International Airport emphasized on handing it over to the pre-2014 management to re-run it under UN supervision or "no one will accept that flights be received in an airport run by an insurgent militia."

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