September 11, 2018
By Harriet Agerholm
MPs are to hold an emergency debate (click here) on the desperate situation of civilians in Yemen, as a new poll suggested a majority of Britons opposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom is the British government’s largest arms customer, with the UK licensing more than £4.6bn worth of arms to the country since the beginning of its bombing campaign in Yemen in March 2015, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).
A poll by YouGov for Save the Children and Avaaz published on Tuesday found that 13 per cent of the British public supported the sale of weapons to the Saudis, while 63 per cent opposed them. It also indicated less than one in six people (14%) think that the UK’s role in supporting the Saudi/UAE-led coalition reflects British values and interests....
Yemen is a difficult topic. On one hand the Houthis have been aggressive in attacks into Saudi Arabia and of course then enters the issue of Iran. Iran backs the Houthis and while the Brits are tired of the killing and suffering of the Yemeni people, including their children, the fighting has not stopped.
Currently, Saudi Arabia is fighting the Yemeni rebels to maintain a port city Hodeidah, a Yemen port on the Red Sea. (click here) Of course, once the port is in the hands of Saudi Arabia it is difficult for the rebels to receive their munitions.
The peace talks collapsed. I think it was simply an excuse. I can't see the parties interested in peace actually killing the delegation to Switzerland. Iran needs to speak to the parties from Yemen and make it clear their safety is understood. If Iran can arm rebels it can also back the delegates to the peace talks.
...The UN and Britain (click here) had invested heavily in the success of peace talks led by UN special envoy Martin Griffiths, but the talks collapsed before they started when the Houthi negotiating team said it had not received satisfactory guarantees from Saudi Arabia about its safe passage to Switzerland. Griffiths said he would continue to his efforts to relaunch the talks....
The entire process gets more complicated when realizing a Foreign Minister is making his way to Iran to secure a British woman of Iranian ethnicity from being detained and return her home.
Alistair Burt, the Foreign Minister from the UK, is visiting with the full force of the "Iran Deal" still intact. I doubt Mr. Burt will be involved in talks regarding the war raging in Yemen in any meaningful way. I suppose he plans to bring it to the attention of Iran, but, that is the UN and the peace deal was supposed to be conducted while Mr. Burt is visiting the Iranians.
This is the first visit to Iran since the United States reneged on it's part to the Iran Deal when there was absolutely no reason in sight for it to end.
August 31, 2018
...“As long as Iran (click here) meets its commitments under the deal, we remain committed to it as we believe it is the best way to ensure a safe, secure future for the region,” Burt said in a statement before his visit....
...Britain is seeking the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she was heading back to Britain with her daughter, now aged four, after a family visit....
The people of the UK are correct, the war in Yemen is becoming a sincere humanitarian problem for the children and no one needs another Syria. Any conflict has to measure it's purpose in relation to the people of that country and whether continuing the war is simply killing people with no clear result in sight.
There comes a time in any conflict/war when the war itself is the enemy and end it becomes the prudent thing to do. If there is an example of that, it is Syria. The fighting should have ended a long time ago, but, no party would see the devastation and the suffering of the people; there were other priorities and that is where humanitarian issues takes center stage and civil war is no longer the problem, so much as genocide and senseless killing.
