Yemen war Saudi Arabia’s strategic blunder: Rouhani

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has denounced Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen, saying Riyadh has made a “very big strategic mistake” by conducting its military campaign against Sana’a.

“The war that took place in Yemen which is in fact not a war, but an unfair attack on a neighboring country by bombarding them,” Rouhani said on Saturday.

He added that Saudi Arabia is pouring bombs on the impoverished Yemeni people instead of helping the developing country.

He said the Saudi government which has no knowledge of political issues in the region and across the world has chosen “the path of bomb” in Yemen.

The Iranian president stated that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the oppressed Muslim country of Yemen is a “historic test” for the world.

“If our sorrow for Yemen is not equal to our grief for a so-and-so European or Asian country, it shows that we have trampled upon all human principles and [the principles of] the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS),” Rouhani said.
He noted that impartiality is the main principle for the ICRC and the IRCS, stressing that the two bodies should make no difference among nations whether in Yemen and Syria or other countries.

He further commended IRCS’s efforts to dispatch humanitarian aid to the war-wracked Yemeni people and said some bids have failed to yield results due to moves which run counter to international regulations.

He emphasized that Iran would proceed with its efforts to send relief aid to Yemen.

Saudi Arabia launched its military aggression against neighboring Yemen on March 26 – without a United Nations mandate – in a bid to undermine the Arab country’s popular committees back by the Ansarullah movement and to restore power to Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of Saudis.

A picture taken on May 8, 2015, shows a heavily damaged street in the Dar Saad district of the southern Yemeni city of Aden following weeks of fierce clashes between Houthi fighters and forces loyal to fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. © AFP

Riyadh has also been blocking humanitarian aid to Yemen. Last month, it prevented two Iranian civilian planes from delivering medical aid and foodstuff to the Yemeni people.

The ICRC and the medical charity group, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), have expressed “extreme” concern over the Saudi airstrikes on Yemen’s lifelines and its obstruction of aid deliveries to the impoverished nation.

The UN has also called for “safe and reliable” access to Yemen’s Sana’a International Airport for the delivery of aid.