By Michelle Nichols and Jonathan Landay
NEW YORK / WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iran’s support for Yemen’s Houthi movement is “quite significant and deadly,” US Special Envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking said on Wednesday, calling for a fight for the gas-rich Marib region of Yemen, the biggest threat. to peace efforts.
Lenderking told U.S. lawmakers that Iran supports houthis in a number of ways, including through training, providing lethal support and helping them “fine-tune” drone and missile programs.
“Unfortunately, all of this is working with very strong effects, as we are seeing more and more attacks on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – and potentially other countries – more accuracy and more lethality. So this is a big concern for us,” he said. said Lenderking in a Chamber hearing the Foreign Affairs Committee of the representatives.
“Iran’s support for the Houthis is quite significant and lethal,” Lenderking said.
A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Houthi group, aligned with Iran, ousted the country’s government in the capital Sanaa. The Houthis said they were fighting a corrupt system.
“I would welcome Iran to play a constructive role if they are willing to do so. I have not seen any indication in this regard,” Lenderking said.
Iran has denied support to the Houthis. A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York rejected Lenderking’s statements as unfounded claims against Iran.
“Iran has repeatedly called for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Yemen,” the Iran spokesman said. “Instead, the United States has provided the deadliest weapons daily to those who use them to kill innocent men, women and children.”
US President Joe Biden said in February that Washington was putting an end to all US support for Saudi-led offensive operations in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.
Since taking office in January, Biden has made Yemen a priority and called for Lenderking to help revive UN’s stalled efforts to end a conflict widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi rivals and Iran.
“What I see is to continue to help and encourage an army of houthi by the Iranians so that they can continue to attack Saudi Arabia, and unfortunately these attacks have grown quite strongly in recent months,” Lenderking said in -a hearing of the subcommittee on external relations of the Senate. Wednesday.
The United States should “leave the issue of finding a meaningless solution to the conflict in the capable hands of regional countries,” said a spokesman for the UN Iranian mission.
Fighting has intensified in recent days as the Houthis push their offensive to take Marib, who, if successful, would strengthen the movement’s hand in any future political negotiations.
“This offensive is the biggest threat to peace efforts and also has devastating humanitarian consequences. If we do not stop the fighting at Marib now, it will trigger an even greater wave of fighting and instability,” Lenderking said.
There are about 70,000 Americans living in neighboring Saudi Arabia, Lenderking said, and “it is our greatest fear that the Americans will be killed in a houthi attack.”
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York and Jonathan Landay in Washington) Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)