By Michelle Nichols and Jonathan Landay
NEW YORK / WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iran’s support for the Houthi movement in Yemen is “quite significant and deadly,” US special envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking said Wednesday, as he battled the gas-rich Marib region. called the greatest threat in Yemen. to peace efforts.
Lenderking told US lawmakers that Iran is supporting the Houthis in a variety of ways, including through training, providing lethal support, and helping them “fine-tune” their drone and missile programs.
“Unfortunately, all of this is working with very strong consequences, as we see more and more attacks on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – and possibly other countries – with more accuracy and more lethality. So this is a major concern for us,” Lenderking told a House. of the hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
“Iran’s support for the Houthis is quite significant, and it is deadly,” Lenderking said.
A Saudi Arabia-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Iran-linked Houthi group ousted the country’s government from the capital, Sanaa. The Houthis have said they are fighting a corrupt system.
“We would like Iran to play a constructive role, if they are willing to do so. We haven’t seen any evidence of that,” Lenderking said.
Iran has denied support for the Houthis. A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York dismissed Lenderking’s comments as baseless claims against Iran.
Iran has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Yemen, the Iranian spokesman said. “In contrast, the US has provided the deadliest weapons to those who use them every day to murder innocent men, women and children.”
US President Joe Biden said in February that Washington stopped all US support for the Saudi-led offensive operations in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.
Since taking office in January, Biden has made Yemen a priority, appointing Lenderking to revive stalled UN efforts to end a conflict widely perceived as a proxy war between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. .
“What I see is that the Iranians are continuing to help and encourage an army of Houthis so that they can continue to attack Saudi Arabia, and unfortunately those attacks have risen quite sharply in recent months,” Lenderking told a later hearing of a sub-committee for Foreign Relations of the Senate. on Wednesday.
The United States should “leave the question of finding a solution to the senseless conflict in the capable hands of the regional countries,” said the Iranian UN mission spokesman.
Fighting has intensified in recent days as the Houthis continued their offensive to capture Marib, which, if successful, would strengthen the hand of the movement in future political negotiations.
“This offensive is the greatest threat to peace efforts and also has devastating humanitarian consequences. If we don’t stop the fighting in Marib now, it will trigger a wave of even greater fighting and instability,” said Lenderking.
About 70,000 US civilians live in neighboring Saudi Arabia, Lenderking said, and “our greatest fear is that 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; edited by Will Dunham)