Iran Rejects Saudis’ Baseless Claims in Letter to UN’s Guterres

Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gholamali Khoshroo made the remarks on Tuesday in a letter sent to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the President of the Security Council.

“These provocative measures made by Saudi authorities have no propose but to divert public opinion away from Saudi Arabia’s criminal actions against Yemen,” he stressed.

He added that Riyadh’s threats to use military force against a UN member is in clear defiance of the UN Charter.

Earlier on Tuesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman alleged that Iran was involved in supplying weapons to the Houthis, which he said “is a direct military aggression” by Iran against Saudi Arabia.

The Houthi movement, which has been fighting back a Saudi-led coalition with allied army troops and tribal fighters, fired a missile at the King Khalid International Airport in northeastern Riyadh on Saturday. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted the missile mid-air.

In a statement on Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition, claimed the Houthis were under Iran’s “direct command.”

The Iranian Foreign Ministry rejected the coalition’s “destructive, irresponsible, provocative and baseless” allegation, saying Yemenis had shown an “independent” reaction to the Saudi military attacks on their country.

Khoshroo further stressed that the Saudi are directly responsible for the deteriorating situation in Yemen due to their closing of all air, sea and land ports.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced that it was shutting down Yemen’s air, sea, and land border, after Yemeni fighters targeted the King Khalid International Airport.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have urged the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen to reopen the aid lifeline to bring imported food and medicine into the impoverished Arab country.

“We call for all air and sea ports to remain open to ensure food, fuel and medicines can enter the country,” said Jens Laerke of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Saudi Arabia has been pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime. The kingdom has failed to achieve its objectives.

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign more than two and a half years ago. Much of the country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.

A cholera epidemic has caused 908,702 suspected cases and 2,194 deaths since the outbreak in April.