WASHINGTON: Pakistan on Monday backed Saudi Arabia at an emergency UN Security Council briefing on Yemen, reaffirming Islamabad’s support for the kingdom’s security and territorial integrity and calling for all parties concerned to resolve differences through dialogue and diplomacy.
Yemen has been gripped by conflict since the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the beleaguered government the following year.
The UN Security Council briefing came after an attack by the Yemeni government on an international airport in Sanaa on Monday. The Yemeni government said it wanted to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in Sanaa after it failed to convince a Houthi delegation, which went to Tehran for assassinated Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral, to board a Yemen flag carrier’s flight instead.
Hours after the airport attack, Saudi Arabia said it intercepted ballistic missiles fired at the country’s south by Houthis.
Monday’s flare-up was the biggest between the Yemeni government and the Houthis in years, with the latter blaming Saudi Arabia for threatening to unravel a UN-negotiated truce that has been holding since 2022.
