Alwaght- Iran's Foreign Minister said on Sunday, Saudi Arabia's aggression against Yemen is doomed to failure, emphasizing that the West-backed regime will not be able to impose its will on the Yemeni people through negotiations either.
“Saudi Arabia cannot either achieve military victory in Yemen or obtain what it has failed through military means via negotiations,” Mohammad Javad Zarif told Lebanon's al-Manar television network on Sunday.
He reminded how the kingdom used to predict in the beginning of the warfare that it would come out victorious within just three weeks. Six years have passed without Riyadh realizing the result, Zarif added.
Riyadh will not be able to get its own way through talks either, the foreign minister said and invited the Persian Gulf’s littoral states to rather meet and address the regional affairs together.
The Islamic Republic, he said, is after the establishment of calm and security in Yemen.
Back in 2016, Zarif forwarded Iran’s proposal for return of peace to Yemen. The proposal advised cessation of the Saudi-led attacks, removal of a Saudi-led siege, transfer of humanitarian supplies to Yemen, and holdiing intra-Yemeni talks.
Earlier in February, United Nations Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths traveled to Tehran to consult with Iranian officials about the situation in the war-wracked country and the means that would enable a potential resolution of the conflict.
The kingdom led its allies into the war in March 2015 to restore power to Yemen’s former pro-Riyadh officials who had fled the country amid a power struggle and refused to stay behind to negotiate a solution.
Tens of thousands of Yemenis have died in the course of the war and the entire already-impoverished country has been pushed close to the brink of outright famine.
The Yemeni defense forces comprising the country’s Army and Popular Committees, though, never laid down their arms in resisting the aggressors.
Victory close in Yemen’s Ma’rib
On Sunday, Abdullah al-Hakim, chief of the Yemeni Army’s military intelligence, said popular forces are about to liberate the west-central province of Ma’rib as militants serving the Saudi-led coalition on the ground are laying down their arms in the face of advancing Yemeni forces.
“Monumental victories and great advances have been made in all military areas,” he said, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported.
The mercenaries have no other choice than to give up their arms, he added, urging facilitation of their return.
Mercenaries urged to seize on amnesty
Ahmed al-Qane'a, a Yemeni official for reconciliation and national dialogue, said a general amnesty that has been announced by San’a, under which the mercenaries could cease their hostilities and be granted clemency in return, is still in place.
“Each day, tens, hundreds, and at times, battalions and divisions of mercenaries come back into the bosom of the nation,” he said.
Al-Hakim warned that Yemen's enemies should not be allowed to block the process of the mercenaries’ defection.
Amid reports of the mercenaries’ mass defection, Saudi warplanes were reported by al-Masirah to have bombarded Ma’rib’s Sirwah and Medghal Districts on Monday on six occasions.
Saudi Arabia also struck Yemen’s northwestern al-Jawf and Sa’ada Provinces, killing one civilian.
The kingdom was reported to have violated a ceasefire announced in Yemen’s western lifeline port city of al-Hudaydah as many as 209 times.
