Yemen’s path to stability depends on restoring the state, Leadership Council vice-president tells UN

This article is published in association with United Nations.

The Vice-President of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Abdullah Al-Alimi Bawazir, told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that his Government had engaged “responsibly and positively” with regional and international peace initiatives and made significant concessions to end the suffering of the Yemeni people.

Mr. Bawazir said, however, that the Houthis had responded with “intransigence”, using periods of humanitarian truce to strengthen their military arsenal at the expense of ordinary citizens.

Addressing the Assembly’s high-level general debate, he said that 12 years of crisis represented “the entire childhood of a Yemeni child”.

“An entire generation was born amid war, grew up amid hunger, fear and weapons, learning the names of mines before learning the alphabet of life,” he said.

Mr. Bawazir argued that international hesitation over designating the Houthis as a terrorist group had given them an opportunity to expand their influence and increase the threat they posed.

He maintained that the conflict could not have continued for so long, nor expanded beyond Yemen to neighbouring countries and international waterways, without Iranian military support for the Houthis, including weapons, expertise and technology.

Maritime security

Turning to the region’s vital waterways, Mr. Bawazir said the Houthis’ use of maritime navigation as “a tool for blackmail” threatened not only Yemen but the global economy.

Recent years had demonstrated, he said, that “ensuring security at sea begins with eliminating the source of the threat on land”.

“Protecting ships is important, but it only addresses the consequences and does not remove the threat,” he added.

He urged the international community not to be reassured by what he called “false promises”, warning that a halt in attacks on ships today did not guarantee they would not resume.

“Lasting maritime security in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden cannot be built while a non-state armed militia remains on the shores,” he said.

Mr. Bawazir stressed that restoring the Yemeni state and securing Bab el-Mandeb were inseparable, arguing that supporting the Government and strengthening its economic, security and military capacities amounted to an investment in international peace and security.

“The path to a secure sea requires a stable Yemen. There is no stability in Yemen without restoring the state,” he said.

‘Our struggle is not against any Yemeni citizen’

Mr. Bawazir stressed that the Government’s fight was not against Yemenis themselves or any particular region, sect or social group.

“Our struggle is not against any Yemeni citizen,” he said, describing it instead as a struggle against “an armed coup” that had seized state institutions and deepened the suffering of Yemenis.

Restoring the state, he added, should not represent the victory of one Yemeni faction over another.

“The future of Yemen will not be built by excluding any of its sons,” he said.

He called on the international community to implement its resolutions, halt the flow of arms and technology to militias and support Yemen’s national institutions and economy.

“We do not ask the world to build Yemen’s future for Yemenis,” he said. “We seek a partnership that supports the state and its institutions and invests in Yemen’s people.”

Mr. Bawazir also reaffirmed Yemen’s support for the Palestinian people’s right to freedom, dignity and an independent sovereign state, and called for an end to their suffering and the protection of civilians.

He thanked the UN and its agencies for their efforts in support of peace and assistance to Yemen, while condemning the continued detention by the Houthis of UN personnel and humanitarian workers.

“Those working for peace and humanitarian relief must never be held hostage to blackmail,” he said.

Concluding, Mr. Bawazir said Bab el-Mandeb would remain “a bridge between peoples, a route for commerce and a gateway to peace”.