Dubai: The UAE, a key player in the coalition battling Houthi rebels in Yemen, yesterday warned the insurgents to withdraw unconditionally from the flashpoint port city of Hodeida, after UN peace efforts fizzled.
“There can be no conditions in any offers to withdraw,” its Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said in Dubai.
“If the rebels wanted to set conditions, they should have thought of that a year ago... Now is not the time to negotiate.”
Houthi rebels have controlled Hodeida, a key entry point for desperately-needed aid, since 2014.
A Saudi Arabia-led coalition last week launched a major operation to drive the rebels out of Hodeida.
Gargash’s statement came hours before the UN’s top Yemen envoy, Mar
tin Griffiths, was due to brief the Security Council on his efforts to end the crisis over Hodeida, whose port handles over 70 per cent of Yemen’s imports.
Gargash said the Saudi and UAE-led offensive aimed “to help the UN envoy in his last chance to convince the Houthis to withdraw unconditionally from the city and avoid any confrontation.”
Griffiths held two days of talks with the Houthis over the weekend in Sanaa, but the rebels rejected a ceasefire under current conditions.
Gargash said his country and its allies aimed to “avoid civilian casualties”, adding that the operation was “going very well”.
He said the coalition had kept the Hodeida-Sanaa road “open for the Houthi militias to withdraw”.
The UAE minister denied reports that French troops had been helping the coalition to take Hodeida, but said France had offered to remove mines when it becomes necessary.
Gargash’s comments came as coalition aircraft bombarded Houthi fighters holed up at the Hodeidah airport.
Apache helicopter gunships yesterday fired at Houthi snipers and other fighters positioned on the rooftops of schools and homes in the Manzar neighbourhood abutting the airport compound, according to local residents.
Gargash said the coalition was taking a measured approach to the battle to minimise risks to civilians and was allowing the Houthis an escape route inland to Sana’a.
In addition, 100 trucks of food aid were en route to Hodeidah on the road from coalition-controlled Aden and Mokha to the south, he said.