Iran denies smuggling missile fuel to Yemen

Iran has unequivocally denied the US Navy's allegations that it attempted to sneak 70 tons of a missile fuel component onto a ship headed for Yemen and concealed it amid bags of fertilizer.

Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York denied the accusations as unfounded in a statement, saying Tehran is firmly committed to UN Security Council Resolution 2216, which places an arms embargo on Yemen.

The statement said, “None of the allegations made against Iran over the smuggling of guns to Yemen had been proven. Iran has not taken any action against the resolution and is actively complying with the sanctions committee constituted to supervise the arms embargo."

Iran is "doing its utmost to restore the truce agreement and enable talks between Yemeni factions as soon as feasible in order to achieve peace and stability in Yemen," the diplomatic mission added.

The US Navy purportedly said that on November 08, 2022 the Coast Guard ship USCGC John Scheuerman and the guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans intercepted a traditional wooden sailing vessel known as a dhow in the Sea of Oman.

It claimed sailors allegedly found sachets of ammonium perchlorate concealed within what at first glance looked to be a consignment of 100 tons of urea.

In addition, the forces claimed that the quantity of ammonium perchlorate found could power more than a dozen medium-range ballistic missiles that members of the Ansarullah movement have used to launch retaliatory attacks against targets inside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The president of Yemen's Supreme Political Council criticized US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking earlier this month for thwarting efforts to prolong the UN-brokered ceasefire and compared the situation in his nation to a ticking time bomb.

"We are in a position of no peace and no war. Although we had made significant progress in earlier rounds of negotiations, the American envoy's visit to the region derailed those efforts," Mahdi al-Mashat was reported as saying in Sanaa on November 07 by Yemen's official Saba news agency.

Al-Mashat referred to Lenderking's trip to the region beginning on October 11 to ostensibly assist the UN-led efforts to extend the cease-fire in Yemen as "while the US ambassador pretends to be a peace dove, he is more an ill-omened owl."

Together with its Arab allies, the US and other Western powers provided Saudi Arabia with munitions and logistical support when it began its destructive war against Yemen in March 2015.

The goal was to overthrow the Ansarullah resistance movement, which had been in charge of the government in Yemen in the absence of a functioning one, and reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi's pro-Riyadh regime.

Despite the fact that the Saudi-led coalition has not succeeded in achieving any of its goals, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and caused the greatest humanitarian disaster in history.

 

Can sustainable peace be established in Middle East?

One wonders why Middle East and North Africa (MENA) continue to suffer from internal turmoil as well as proxy wars. Some analysts say the single largest reason behind ongoing turmoil can be ongoing attempts to keep crude oil prices high to facilitate other countries to boost their domestic oil production.

The latest evidence was attack on Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia to attract high subscription to Initial Public Offering (IPO). The immediate success was, China opting to take US$10 billion stake in one of the largest energy production facility in the world.

Reportedly, Saudi Arabia is making efforts to negotiate an end to the Yemen war by initiating a dialogue with Iran. This move is not likely to be approved by US President Donald Trump, the biggest proponent of maximum pressure on the Islamic republic.

Saudi officials hope that talks mediated by Oman and Britain between the kingdom and Houthi rebels will lead to a revival of stalled talks between the Yemeni insurgents and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

 Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has tasked his younger brother and Saudi deputy defense minister, Khalid bin Salman, with engineering an end to the Yemeni war as part of a broader revamp of Saudi foreign policy.

The revamp involves a return to a more cautious foreign and defense policy that embraces multilateralism after several years in which the kingdom adopted an assertive and robust go it alone approach that produced several fiascos, including the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen initiated four and a half years ago. The revamp was prompted by attacks in September on two of the kingdom’s key oil facilities as well as doubts about the reliability of the US defense commitment to the Gulf.

The kingdom’s return to a more cautious approach is also intended to project itself in 2020 as president of the Group of 20 (G20) and repair its image tarnished by the Yemen War, the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and a domestic crackdown on dissent.

 Trump’s response to the September drone and missile attacks for which the Houthis were blames claimed in some ways was the clearest indication that Gulf States may not be able to count on the United States in times of crisis.

Trumph said that the attack was on Saudi Arabia and the US would certainly help them, but his adoption of a transactional attitude towards Gulf security did upset Saudi Arabia.

 It is being propagated by the US that the attacks on Saudi Arabia suggests that escalation of US-Iranian tensions would make them targets in an environment in which the United States may not wholeheartedly come to their rescue.

The US officials are also suggesting that now the Saudi policy is to lessen their involvement in Yemen and to stop Yemen being some version of a proxy so they (the Saudis) can deal directly with Iran.

United Nations Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council this week that the number of air attacks by the Saudi-led coalition had dropped by nearly 80% lately.

Griffiths said, “We call this de-escalation, a reduction in the tempo of the war and perhaps a move towards an overall ceasefire in Yemen,". He also expressed hopes that a negotiated end to the war could be achieved early next year.

However, the efforts to end war as well as gestures towards Iran in recent months by the United Arab Emirates did not stop senior Saudi and UAE officials from adopting a hard line.

“Appeasement simply cannot work with Iran. We hold Iran responsible for the attack on Abqaiq. We do not want war, but Iran needs to be held accountable” said Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir at a Bahrain gathering.

Al-Jubeir’s UAE counterpart, Anwar Gargash added, “The key to stability is deterrence and steadfast resolve of the international community was that Iran must change. If not, sanctions must be increased, not loosened.”