Iran is engaged in talks to lift sanctions imposed on it yet continues to smuggle arms to its proxies in Yemen, who carry out ongoing attacks on neighbouring Gulf states, ultimately squandering any chance for peace in Yemen.
The Houthis on Saturday announced a ceasefire, which they have so far upheld.
But the move follows a volley of attacks against Saudi Arabia.
On Friday, the Iran-backed group fired drones and missiles at 16 targets in Saudi Arabia, hitting Aramco’s petroleum products distribution station in Jeddah and causing a fire in two storage tanks.
A few days earlier, they launched a wave of cross-border drone and missile attacks at civilian facilities in Saudi Arabia.
They used Iranian cruise missiles to attack a desalination plant in al-Shuqaiq and an Aramco petroleum distribution plant in Jizan.
The Houthis’ attacks signal “Iran’s malicious intentions towards the security and stability of the region, with its continued smuggling of weapons to the Houthis”, said Deputy Minister of Legal Affairs and Human Rights Nabil Abdul Hafeez.
Iran has continued to smuggle arms to the Houthis, officials said, fueling regional tensions and squandering the opportunity to achieve lasting peace in Yemen.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) smuggling networks have repeatedly attempted to breach a UN-imposed arms embargo that bans the supply of weapons to the Houthis, Abdul Hafeez said.
“Hardly a period passes without us hearing about a seizure of Iranian weapons by the US Navy,” he added.
In December, for example, the US Navy seized 1,400 AK-47 rifles and ammunition from a fishing boat in the North Arabian Sea suspected of originating in Iran.
In January, a confidential UN report concluded that thousands of rocket launchers, machine guns, sniper rifles and other weapons the US Navy seized in the Arabian Sea likely originated from a port in Iran.
Source » iranbriefing