Foreign Ministry refutes UN envoy’s briefing to Security Council on Yemen

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates followed the Security Council session held yesterday dedicated to hearing the briefing provided by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed in a statement its strong condemnation of the politicization, selectivity, and alignment with the US-British position contained in the briefing of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Yemen, especially his focus on the Red Sea issue and linking it to the peace file in Yemen.

It affirmed that the UN envoy ignored the fundamental issues that concern the Yemeni people, foremost among them the suffocating humanitarian suffering due to the continued unjust and illegitimate siege, and the economic war waged by the United States against the Yemeni people, in partnership with its regional arm in the region represented by the Saudi regime, which persists in implementing unilateral measures that exacerbate the people’s suffering, as a humanitarian crime added to its record of crimes in Yemen.

It stressed that it would have been more appropriate for the UN envoy to call for the opening of Sana’a International Airport, which is the air outlet for nearly 80 percent of citizens, especially the thousands suffering from incurable diseases who urgently need to travel for treatment abroad, as the continued closure of the airport and causing the deaths of thousands of patients is a full-fledged humanitarian crime, violating the most basic inherent human rights guaranteed by international laws and covenants, the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, and the Montreal Convention for Air Transport.

The statement pointed out that the UN envoy also ignored the arbitrary measures introduced by the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) against ships and shipments heading to Red Sea ports, including detention, imposing fines, and delays in issuing permits, which negatively affected the regularity of ship movements, maritime transport costs, the flow of goods, and local market stability.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed astonishment at the envoy’s disregard in his briefing for the previous commitments of the peace process and the roadmap prepared with UN oversight, which has been pending for more than two years without activation, despite reaching an advanced stage with only the Saudi regime’s signature remaining.

It affirmed its categorical rejection of the envoy’s great insistence on conditioning the peace process in Yemen on Sana’a’s silence regarding the aggression and heinous crimes committed by the Israeli enemy with the support of its American partner in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran, stressing that such insistence aligns with the hostile policies of the United States and the Saudi regime towards the Yemeni people, is nothing but an attempt to undermine the peace process, and reinforces the image of the envoy’s failure before the Yemeni people, to whom he has not delivered any tangible achievement over more than four years, especially on the humanitarian front.

The statement indicated that the UN envoy falsely and slanderously accused Sana’a of violating human rights, ignoring the fact that dozens of Yemenis die daily due to malnutrition, the spread of diseases, lack of medicine and healthcare, inability to travel abroad for treatment, and other causes resulting from the aggression and siege imposed on Yemen for the 12th consecutive year.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its condemnation of the UN envoy’s involvement in characterizing what is happening in the region as unjustified violence, when it is a brutal and unjust aggression on the Islamic Republic of Iran by the United States and the Israeli enemy entity.

It concluded the statement by reminding the envoy of his mandate and the role assigned to him as an envoy representing the United Nations, not representing regional or international parties, and that his mission requires professionalism, independence, and neutrality, and to maintain equal distance from all parties.