Yemen warns any country joining Saudi aggression is aggressor

In response to a joint defense agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, Yemen's Supreme Political Council and Foreign Ministry have issued strong condemnations, warning that any country joining the Saudi-led aggression against Yemen will be considered an aggressor.

The agreement, signed on Friday, aims to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression and stipulates that an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack on all. However, Yemen's Sanaa government condemned the pact, calling it a cover for the continuation of the Saudi aggression against Yemen, as reported by Press TV.

President of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, stressed that "agreements do not apply retroactively, and that the policy of 'siege for siege' continues until its objectives are achieved." He warned, "Whoever wants to participate with the Saudi aggressor in its 12-year-long aggression and blockade is an aggressor, even if they wrap this participation in glittering titles." He added that Yemeni law defines how to deal with hostile states. Addressing Saudi officials, al-Mashat said, "Even if you rally the entire world to your side, it will not benefit you. The cost of a just and honorable peace and good neighborliness is far less than war."

Yemen's Foreign Ministry also issued a statement emphasizing that any Islamic bloc whose main goal is not to confront the Israeli enemy and support the Palestinian cause serves the Ummah's enemies and is doomed to failure. The ministry advised Riyadh to stop its aggression and siege of Yemen rather than floundering in search of solutions to the crisis it has dragged itself into. It stressed that buying loyalty and squandering funds will not protect the Saudi regime from accountability for its crimes in Yemen, and that no regional or global bloc will be able to strip the Yemeni people of their legitimate rights. The statement also stressed that there is no legitimate agreement that gives any party the freedom to commit crimes or violate the rights of other countries.

Mohammad al-Farah, a member of the Ansarullah resistance movement, vowed that the group would continue its efforts to break the Saudi siege in defiance of the formed coalition. "We will press on to break the siege, regardless of any coalition formed against us," he said. He urged Turkey, Pakistan, and other Muslim countries to refrain from turning into a "political cover" for any aggression or siege of an Islamic nation. "What is expected of Muslim countries is not to form a coalition to support the aggressor and protect it from the fallout of its policies, but to pressure the aggressor to end the aggression," Farah added.

Tensions flared last month when Saudi Arabia tried to prevent the return of an Iranian plane carrying a delegation of Yemeni officials to Tehran for the funeral of Iran's martyred Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The plane was diverted after the Sanaa airport was bombed and landed safely in the city of Hudaydah. Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched the blockade on Yemen as part of a full-scale war on March 26, 2015, with military, political, and logistical support from the United States and other Western states. The war has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis, while consistently falling short of its main objective of restoring power to Yemen's former Riyadh-friendly regime. The government had fled the country amid a power struggle, prompting Ansarullah, Yemen's popular resistance movement, to start running state affairs. Following a fragile UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022, the United States, Britain, and the Israeli regime waged many rounds of wholesale aggression against Yemen. The attacks sought to cripple Sanaa's capability to stage solidarity strikes against Israeli targets in response to Tel Aviv's war of genocide on the Gaza Strip. According to Mehr News Agency, these developments highlight the ongoing tensions in the region.