Ukraine is not Yemen

The Yemeni government announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Iran. Although the Aden television report cited by Reuters does not mention the immediate reasons for such a radical step, it is not difficult to guess that the current Yemeni government is accusing the Islamic Republic of supporting local Shiite rebels, the Houthis.

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Just a few days ago, from the UN rostrum, President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi said that Iran would like to see the destruction of his country. Recently, in connection with the situation in Yemen, another member of the anti-Houthi coalition, Bahrain, where the majority of the population adheres to the Shiite branch of Islam, and the ruling majority is Sunni, recalled its ambassador from Iran.

The Houthis, or Ansar Allah movement, forced Hadi to flee the country in March this year and are fighting a war with an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which invaded Yemen at his call.

Today the country is actually split into three parts.

The western part of the country, including the capital Sanaa and the Red Sea coast, is controlled by the Houthis, government forces control the southern and partly eastern parts of the country, with the center in Aden, where the government returned from Riyadh in mid-September. And finally, part of the eastern regions, including the section of the ocean coast with the port city of Al-Mukalla, is occupied by jihadist militants focused on the Islamic State.

The ground operation of the coalition forces is progressing with varying success, and the Saudis periodically miss painful blows from the Ansar Allah militants and Yemeni army units that have defected to their side.

True, yesterday government troops and coalition forces managed to achieve an important success - the island of Mayun in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the adjacent settlements on the Yemeni coast were taken under control. Rebel forces have been driven back from the bottleneck, control of which ensures the security of maritime transport, primarily oil supplies from the Persian Gulf countries.

At the end of September, the Netherlands approached the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with a resolution on the need to send a monitoring mission to Yemen. The humanitarian situation in the country is deteriorating, and individual actions of various parties to the conflict can be qualified as war crimes.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia wanted to gain UN support for its actions against the Houthis. The discussion on this topic became especially acute after more than 130 guests of a wedding ceremony in the village of Al-Wahijah in the southwest of Yemen became victims of a bombing at the very end of September.

At the same time, the Saudi Arabian authorities deny the involvement of their air force in this tragedy. And today, Dutch diplomats were forced to withdraw their resolution and abandon the idea of ​​​​creating a mission independent from the Yemeni government to monitor human rights in that country. Philippe Dam, deputy director of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, said that “in fact, all this was necessary to protect Saudi Arabia from international investigation.” At least 2 civilians have already been killed since the conflict began, according to UN data released Tuesday.

The Yemeni crisis is often compared to the Ukrainian crisis; they unfolded almost simultaneously, and the president’s flight from the capital to the south, and then to a neighboring country and appeal to its authorities for military assistance took place within a month of each other.

There is indeed one very significant difference here. The world community did not recognize the new Yemeni government; the legitimate president returned to his country on foreign bayonets and accused Iran of supporting the rebels who overthrew him (just last week, coalition forces seized an Iranian fishing boat loaded with anti-tank missiles).

And these accusations received a logical continuation - in response to Iran’s hostile actions, diplomatic relations between the countries were severed. However, in this matter it turned out that Ukraine is not Yemen.