DUBAI: Yemen’s Ansarullah group said it is unilaterally halting attacks in the Red Sea for two weeks to support peace efforts, days after Saudi Arabia suspended oil exports through a strategic Red Sea channel following attacks on crude tankers last week.
Yemen — where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling the movement in a three-year-old war — lies on one of the world’s most important trade routes for oil tankers, the Bab al Mandeb strait.
“The unilateral halt in naval military operations will be for a limited time period and could be extended and include all fronts if this move is reciprocated by the leadership of the coalition,” the head of the group’s supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al Houthi, said in a statement.
The Twitter and Facebook accounts said the suspension will last two weeks. But “it can be renewed and expanded to other fronts if this initiative is well-received and reciprocated”, the statement said.
A statement from the Ansarullah-controlled defence ministry said later that the movement was halting naval operations for two weeks.
“We welcome any initiative to spare bloodshed and stop aggression against Yemen,” the statement published on the state news agency Saba said, quoting a defence ministry official.
Saudi Arabia said last Thursday it was suspending oil shipments through the strait after the group attacked two Saudi oil tankers, one of which sustained minimal damage, until the waterway was safe.
A coalition spokesman did not immediately respond.
The group’s leader said the initiative aimed to support efforts to find a political solution to the conflict.
UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths has been shuttling between the warring parties to avert a coalition assault on the main port city of Hodeida.
Hodeida Port is the main port of the Arab country, where around 8.4 million people are believed to be on the verge of starvation. The coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government in exile.
Yemen’s war has killed nearly 10,000 people and triggered what the UN calls the world’s largest single humanitarian crisis, with more than eight million Yemenis at risk of starvation. — Reuters
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