The UAE-Saudi coalition announced today, Sunday, the destruction of an unmanned aircraft launched by the Houthis towards Saudi Arabia, at a time when the UN envoy to Yemen began a visit to Tehran to discuss the crisis with officials there, amid accelerated shifts in the US position.
The coalition said that it intercepted, in the early hours of this morning, an explosive drone launched by the Houthis towards Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted the spokesman for the coalition forces, Brigadier General Turki Al-Maliki, as saying that the joint coalition forces managed this morning to intercept and destroy an explosive unmanned aircraft launched by the Houthis "in a systematic and deliberate manner to target civilian objects and civilians in the southern region" in Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis repeatedly fire ballistic missiles, missiles and drones at Saudi areas, some of which caused human and material losses, while the coalition and Saudi air defense intercepted many of them.
The group says that these attacks come in response to the ongoing coalition raids on it in separate areas of Yemen.
To Iran
In the same context, the UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths began, Sunday morning, a visit to Tehran to discuss the Yemeni crisis with Iranian officials.
Griffiths’s office said that the visit will last for two days, during which he will meet Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif and a number of Iranian officials.
He explained that the visit comes within the diplomatic efforts made by the Special Envoy to reach a political solution to the conflict in Yemen through negotiation, in a manner that meets the aspirations of the Yemeni people.
He added that the UN envoy's priorities are "to support an agreement between the two parties to the conflict on a ceasefire in all parts of the country, to implement urgent humanitarian measures, and to resume the political process."
Earlier, the UN envoy held meetings with Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik and Saudi Khalid bin Salman, Deputy Minister of Defense.
During his meeting with European ambassadors, Yemeni Prime Minister Moein Abdul-Malik said that there is no peace with the Houthis without international pressure on Iran.
An American shift, and
these developments come after the United States officially stopped military support for Saudi operations in Yemen, and announced its intention to cancel the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group, a decision taken by former US President Donald Trump days before his departure from the White House.
Yesterday, Saturday, the US State Department said that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud discussed issues including regional security, human rights and the war in Yemen.
"The secretary identified several key priorities for the new administration, including increasing (attention) to human rights issues and ending the war in Yemen," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.