Saudi, allies trying to strangle Yemen through economic pressure: Houthi

The leader of Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement says Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, which are involved in an atrocious military campaign against Yemen that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and left the country’s critical infrastructure in ruins, are seeking to choke off the Yemeni nation through economic pressure.

Addressing his supporters via a televised speech broadcast live from the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a on Saturday evening, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi stated that American statesmen were making economic and political interests out of the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen as it had poured billions of dollars into the US Treasury.

He warned that Yemen’s economy was under attack; and that the Riyadh regime and its allies eyed oil-rich regions inside the conflict-plagued Arab country and were trying to wrest control over them.

“The Yemeni nation is going through a difficult economic situation. Enemies are seeking to freeze the Yemeni overseas assets. They want Yemen to be a client state,” Houthi pointed out.

Turning to the UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva, Houthi said representatives of the Houthi movement needed guarantee for safety during the negotiations.

“Aggressors cannot act as guarantors of our delegates’ safety. The fact is that the US is not happy with peace talks as it has benefited a lot from the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen,” the Ansarullah leader commented.

Houthi delegates were reportedly prevented by Saudi Arabia from attending peace negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva earlier this week.

Ansarullah accused the Saudis of planning to strand the delegation in Djibouti, where their plane was to make a stop en route to Geneva.

The Saudis were “still refusing to give permission to an Omani plane” to land at the Yemeni capital Sana’a and take the delegation to Geneva, the movement said.

PressTV-Yemenis blame Saudi Arabia for Houthi absence in Geneva

Yemeni protesters have slammed Saudi Arabia for its purported refusal to allow a Houthi delegation to attend the Geneva peace talks.

Loay al-Shamy, a senior Yemeni Information Ministry official in Sana'a, said, "Regarding the peace talks, the delegation was formed and their names were announced and were ready to go but the UN, under pressure from the United States and Britain could not fulfill what was agreed on."

The agreement was "to provide an Omani plane for the delegation that will participate in Geneva and offer the assurances required for the return of the delegation,” he said. 

“We saw during the last talks that the delegation was stuck abroad and the UN could not bring them back home," Shamy noted.

Delegates from Yemen’s former government and representatives of the Houthi movement held their last UN-sponsored negotiations in Kuwait in 2016 in a bid to hammer out a “power-sharing” deal but they fell apart after the Saudi-backed side left the venue.

PressTV-'Yemen alarmingly facing growing cases of malnutrition'

According to UNICEF, 1.8 million children are acutely malnourished in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah.

Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression.

More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

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