Yemen’s Houthi group yesterday threatened to return to military escalation and resume attacks on economic facilities in Saudi Arabia, in response to Riyadh’s failure to settle the humanitarian issue in the negotiations between the two parties, Russian news agency Sputnik reported on its Arabic website.
The Iran-backed Yemeni group’s TV station, Al-Masirah TV, cited Lieutenant General Jalal Al-Ruwaishan, deputy head of the National Salvation Government, as saying, “There is no Saudi response until now for settling the humanitarian issue after [the month of] Ramadan’s negotiations.”
“Our assessment is that they are buying time,” he added.
“As they stand, the ongoing negotiations with the Saudi side, mediated by Oman, continue to be attempts to achieve peace, which were positively met by Sanaa.”
The Houthi official expressed “hope that Saudi Arabia will realise that economic development plans cannot be combined with invading a neighbouring country.”
“Sanaa has the ability to militarily control Saudi ports and the capital flow incoming into them, and the Yemeni armed forces previously carried out operations in this direction,” he said, accusing the Saudi-led Arab coalition of seeking to complicate the situation in Yemen with the aim of dividing the country.
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