Yemen's foreign minister is blaming Iran and its support for Houthi Shiite rebels for causing the country's civil war and says it can't be part of the solution.
Iran, "is part of the problem, not the solution" when it comes to ending conflict in the war-torn nation, Yemen's top diplomat said at the UN headquarters in New York.
Iran “continues to support the Huthis and Iranian arms are smuggled” Foreign Minister Abdulmalik al-Mekhlafi said when asked if Tehran could contribute to a political solution in Yemen.
According to AFP he was speaking at a major luncheon hosted by Yemen and Saudi Arabia with the majority of diplomatic missions to the United Nations.
"Iran has no role to play in the region," echoed the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi.
The Saudi-led military coalition largely controls the country's airspace, although US drones also carry out strikes on suspected Al-Qaeda bases there.
More than 8,300 people have been killed and 44,000 wounded since the Saudi-led coalition entered the Yemen war in 2015.
Close to 2,000 Yemenis have also died of cholera since April and another 600,000 are expected to contract the infection this year.
Yemen has been engulfed in civil war since September 2014, when Houthi rebels swept into the capital and overthrew the government. In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition began a campaign against Houthi forces.
In an exclusive interview with Nader Sadighi our senior Correspondent in Washington, DC Michael Rubin Middle East specialist at American Enterprise Institute says he can see no end to this bloody conflict in the foreseeable future.
