Iran warns regional states against following warmongers

Iran has dismissed claims by the United Arab Emirates that the Islamic Republic is arming Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah fighters, urging regional states to remain vigilant against warmongering policies.

“Countries which launched a cruel war against the defenseless Yemeni people, after one year and a half since the beginning of the aggression and [committing] numerous crimes against the Yemeni people, are trying to justify their ignominious defeat through such claims,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Friday.

He urged countries which cannot endure the most minor consequences of wars not to fall for warmongering policies.

In his recent allegations against Iran, the Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Bin Mohammad Gargash, claimed that Iran is sending weapons to Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah fighters and this would only prolong the war in Yemen.

He added that Houthi’s recent targeting of an Emirati military vessel, Swift, is part of systemic aggression and premeditated escalation aimed at undermining any political solution to the Yemeni crisis.

On Saturday, Yemeni forces targeted and destroyed the Emirati military vessel in a rocket attack near the Red Sea port city of Mokha.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman on Tuesday also denied claims made by a US official that a missile used by Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah fighters to destroy the Emirati military vessel was made by Iran.

Qassemi said the US should take a look at its own heavy dossier concerning the supply of arms and weapons to those attacking civilians in Yemen instead of putting the blame on others.

Yemen has been under Saudi military strikes since late March 2015. The war was launched in a bid to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who has stepped down as president but is now seeking to grab power by force. The United Nations puts the death toll from the military aggression at about 10,000.

Houthi Ansarullah fighters, allied with Yemeni army factions, and forces loyal to Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have united and are fighting back the Saudi invaders.