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Saudi Arabia plays economic warfare on UN: Analyst

Thursday, 09 June 2016 5:23 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 09 June 2016 8:41 AM ]

Yemeni children stand outside houses which were destroyed several months ago in a Saudi airstrike in the capital Sana’a, on March 12, 2016. (AFP photo)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Catherine Shakdam, director of Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies in London, and Jihad Mouracadeh, a political analyst in Beirut, to discuss a UN decision to remove Saudi Arabia from a blacklist of child rights violators despite being blamed for the killing of hundreds of Yemeni children.

Saudi Arabia is a “war criminal”, and a “terrorist state” which is terrorizing Yemen and the Yemeni children, she said.

The Saudi aggression against Yemen is actually a “genocidal war” because of the “atrocious" crimes which the regime is committing in the impoverished country, she said.

“Yemeni children have died in the hundreds because Saudi Arabia is dropping cluster bombs which are illegal by the way and Saudi Arabia is starving Yemen to death, organizing a humanitarian blockade on Yemen with the help of the UN and no one is saying anything about it,” Shakdam said.

Shakdam said Riyadh has in fact launched an “economic warfare" against the United Nations by threatening to cut funds to the international body for objecting to Saudi violations.

Mouracadeh disagreed, saying there have been deaths in Yemen on both sides and that the whole issue of putting Saudi Arabia in a UN blacklist was "irrelevant.”

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