WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved an amendment to the 2020 defense budget bill that would halt support for the Saudi-UAE alliance in Yemen if Riyadh and Abu Dhabi continue to hand in weapons to their militias in Yemen, US Senator Chris Murphy said.

Murphy, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement after the amendment passed that Yemen's war was a nightmare on US national security and should use all available means to stop it, and that the power of al-Qaeda and its factions in Yemen was increasing. Before.

He said in his statement that he was pleased to pass his amendment, and that this is the moment when the United States should intervene to negotiate a political solution that ends the crisis in Yemen, and prevent the US weapons from causing the war there.

I'm generally a risk taker on pushing amendments for votes in committees. I lose a lot but sometimes it pays off - like it just did now.

Just won a vote on defense budget to stop aid to Saudis / UAE if they keep transferring weapons to their militia partners in Yemen.

- Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 12, 2019

The senator said earlier that the failure of the Saudis and Emiratis to fulfill their commitments to the United Nations with regard to Yemen, is a moral dilemma, as he put it. "This is happening, while tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, most of them children, are expected to die because of a lack of assistance," he said.

Message to legislators
Senate Republicans and Democrats have resumed pressure on Saudi Arabia to push through its pledges of $ 750 million in aid to help the Yemeni people, Reuters reported.

Lawmakers from both parties, led by Murphy and Republican Senator Todd Young, on Wednesday sent a letter to the Saudi crown prince reminding Saudi Arabia to give only a fraction of its humanitarian commitments to the crisis in Yemen.

The letter warned that if Saudi Arabia did not provide full financial assistance by the end of October, 5 million Yemenis would be deprived of safe drinking water supplies.

"Tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, many of them children, will die this month, next month and beyond because the Saudis and Emiratis have decided not to deliver on their promises," warned Mohammed al-Yadomi, head of the Yemeni Reform Group.