Yemen

Your Majesties, Excellencies, and Highnesses, Your Excellency Mr Philemon Yang, President of the General Assembly, Your Excellency Mr António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a happy coincidence that our address today coincides with a glorious national occasion for the Yemeni people: 26 September—the day, 62 years ago, our people made history by toppling the racist Imamate regime and proclaiming the Republic. It is an occasion to extend congratulations to Yemenis everywhere and to express our pride and gratitude for the courage of those young men and women, and the thought leaders, who each year on this historic day defy the brutality of the Houthi machine, supported by the Iranian regime. Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Yemeni government remains committed to a comprehensive and just peace based on national, regional, and international references. However, it is also necessary to strengthen its position in the face of other potential outcomes, given the ongoing escalation by the Houthi militias at both domestic and regional levels. To prevent the expansion and entrenchment of this escalation, there is an urgent need for a collective approach to support the Yemeni government and strengthen its institutional capacity to protect its territorial waters and secure its national territory. Without addressing these needs, and without enforcing relevant UN resolutions—including the ban on the flow of Iranian weapons and the drying up of funding sources—the militias will not engage in any meaningful peace efforts. They will continue their extortion tactics against regional and international stakeholders. History teaches us that complacency in the face of peace’s enemies marks the beginning of the worst and most costly wars. Despite the truce agreed to by the government in April 2022, the militias have continued their military violations and grave abuses of human rights and national and international laws. In October 2022, the Houthi militias attacked oil export ports in the governorates of Hadramout and Shabwa, depriving the Yemeni people of vital revenues for salaries and essential services. This further worsened the humanitarian crisis and sent the national currency into unprecedented decline. More recently, the Yemeni government froze its decision to transfer bank headquarters from Houthi-controlled Sana’a to the temporary capital, Aden, responding to UN and international calls for de-escalation and in hopes that the Houthis would engage in serious talks to address the economic crisis and revive peace efforts, mediated by Saudi Arabia and Oman. Instead, the Houthis responded by hijacking three Yemenia Airlines planes, attacking the “Safer” oil facility in Marib with drones, and issuing racist regulations to concentrate public sector jobs—including within the judiciary—into the hands of loyalist militants. This signals more repressive measures against public freedoms and civil society. Such reckless escalation in response to peace overtures requires the international community to adopt firm policies that compel the Houthis toward peace in line with international resolutions—especially Resolution 2216—rather than allowing them to continue their futile escalation. Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Nearly four months have passed since the Houthi terrorist militias abducted dozens of UN staff members. These individuals now join thousands of innocent women, children, youth, and elderly people held in Houthi prisons for years—including the political leader Mohammed Qahtan, named in a UN Security Council resolution. It is widely believed that the United Nations bears some responsibility for enabling these abductions—by not responding to the Yemeni government’s repeated calls to relocate its offices from Houthi-controlled Sana’a to the temporary capital, Aden. By failing to take the Houthi threats seriously and maintaining offices in Sana’a, the UN has—albeit inadvertently—enabled these terrorists to use its staff and assets as hostages and bargaining chips to extract unacceptable concessions from the international community. This situation cannot be justified or sustained. Keeping UN headquarters in Sana’a emboldens a group listed as terrorists and endangers aid workers and human rights defenders. It is essential that these policies and arrangements be urgently reviewed. Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Through its ongoing terrorist attacks on global commercial shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waters, the Houthi militia has shown that it is not only a threat to Yemen—as was previously assumed a decade ago—but also a growing threat to regional stability and the safe flow of more than a trillion dollars in international trade. Today, it stands as the first rebel group in history to use ballistic missiles and drones to target civilian commercial vessels. Just last month, the Houthis struck the tanker *Richmond Voyager*, which was carrying nearly one million barrels of crude oil. The attack sparked fires that could have resulted in one of the largest oil spills in history—until the ship was rescued with great difficulty by the international coalition. This was not the first such attack. The Houthis had previously boasted of sinking two other ships and, for years, obstructed efforts to offload the dilapidated *FSO Safer*, which contained a similar volume of crude oil. These acts confirm that the Houthis’ terrorism poses a continuing threat to maritime security. Ladies and Gentlemen, For years, Yemen’s economy has faced complex challenges. But the Houthi attacks on oil facilities have intensified the financial crisis in unprecedented ways, depriving the government and the people of key revenue sources for salaries and public services. This economic warfare is part of a broader hostile strategy aimed at weakening the government’s ability to deliver basic services and pay public sector salaries—thereby deepening the humanitarian crisis affecting over 14 million Yemenis. It is vital that the international community take the catastrophic impact of these terrorist actions seriously and work to secure vital infrastructure and protect shipping in Yemeni ports—so that the Yemeni people and their government can benefit from national resources to improve living conditions. Safeguarding the arteries of the Yemeni economy is not only essential for the country’s recovery and future, but also for regional stability and long-term global energy security. For this reason, the Republic of Yemen renews its call to the international community for urgent and comprehensive support—both to address the humanitarian catastrophe and to lay the foundations for long-term economic recovery. This includes not only immediate humanitarian aid and stronger accountability mechanisms—especially in areas controlled by the militias—but also greater investment in infrastructure, healthcare, education, sustainable development, and national capacity to manage the impacts of climate change, which in the past two months alone has left hundreds dead and thousands displaced. Yemen’s recovery is not just a national matter—it is a regional and global necessity. Its stability is essential to maintaining peace, regional security, and trade routes in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and surrounding waters, including the Suez Canal. We value the international support we have received in the past, and we continue to express gratitude for your moral responsibility—particularly the Coalition to Support Legitimacy led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—for supporting the Yemeni people’s aspirations for stability, peace, and prosperity, and for providing the necessary resources to rebuild institutions and the social fabric. Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Arab region today faces a crucial test in the struggle to build functioning states and catch up with the pace of civilisational progress—a goal this Assembly session has adopted. Every time a country in our region moves forward in development, peace, and prosperity—empowering its people politically, economically, and socially—destructive forces emerge, encouraged by international leniency toward rogue groups and their sponsors. These groups interpret leniency as a green light to pursue their illegitimate agendas. The outcome of this battle between the forces of peace and the axis of evil will determine whether this region—home to some of the earliest human civilisations—survives and develops, or descends further into chaos, civil war, militia dominance, weapons proliferation, oppression, and backwardness. The path to peace must involve supporting the efforts of moderate forces in the region, led by Saudi Arabia, which—with our brothers in the Coalition to Support Legitimacy—has shouldered the responsibility of defending international resolutions, offering aid, and hosting millions fleeing war and armed conflict. History and reason explain why we are grateful to these countries—and why the world should rely on them to help establish peace and stability, and to ensure that our peoples benefit from the region’s extraordinary economic and social progress. Accordingly, the false narratives about the Yemeni issue must end—particularly those downplaying Iran’s role and its destabilising arms shipments that threaten the security and stability of Yemen, the region, and the world. Ladies and Gentlemen, The brutal Israeli war on the Palestinian people must stop immediately. That is the key to the desired peace and the starting point for exposing the fallacies used by Iran and its proxies to further destabilise the region. Iran’s opportunistic use of the Palestinian cause is not new. It is a history of extortion and hollow rhetoric that has only served to derail peace and squander the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to establish a sovereign, independent state. As with Yemen, the path to ending the suffering of the Palestinian people must be rooted in international legitimacy and relevant frameworks—especially the Arab Peace Initiative. Similarly, the only way to deter Israeli aggression against Lebanon is through a firm stance from the international community, the unity of the Lebanese people, and respect for their sovereignty and internal affairs. Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, I remind you that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins by affirming that: *“Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”* These principles have, for the most part, endured for decades under the umbrella of the United Nations system. Yet the ultimate defiance of these values—and of national and international ethics and norms—has come from the leaders of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Houthi militias, who continue to promise the world more ruin. **Thank you.** **Peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you.** --- Let me know if you’d like this prepared as a document or included in a comparative analysis.