Yemen's Houthis say Red Sea attacks do not threaten peace with Riyadh

Aziz El Yaakoubi
Updated ·2 min read
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Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, walks after an interview with Reuters in Sanaa

By Aziz El Yaakoubi

RIYADH (Reuters) -The chief negotiator for Yemen's Houthis said on Thursday the group's attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea do not threaten its peace talks with Saudi Arabia, blaming Israel's war in Gaza for dragging the Middle East into more regional conflict.

The Houthi movement, an Iran-aligned group that controls much of Yemen after nearly a decade of war against a Western-backed and Saudi-led coalition, has emerged as a strong supporter of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in its war against Israel.

The group has been attacking commercial ships it says are linked to Israel or bound for Israeli ports, and has engaged directly with the U.S. navy in the Red Sea, firing ballistic missiles and deploying armed drones against U.S. and British warships.

The Houthis' top negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam said the attacks in the Red Sea, however, had no impact on the peace process underway with Saudi Arabia, with the mediation of Oman and the United Nations.

"It has nothing to do with what is happening in the Gaza Strip, unless the Americans want to move other countries in the region to defend Israel which is another matter," he told Reuters.

U.S.-allied Gulf and Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, have been pressing Washington for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying that is the only way to prevent the conflict from spreading beyond the Gaza strip.

Washington says it will continue to stand with Israel and ensure that Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israeli towns in which its gunmen killed 1,200 people and seized 240 hostages can never happen again.

"The one who is dragging the region into a wider war is the one who allows the continuation of the aggression and the siege that continues for more than 100 days in the Gaza Strip," Abdulsalam said.

The group is seeking to pressure the Israelis and Americans into a ceasefire, including lifting the siege on Gaza and moving towards peace and dialogue, Abdulsalam added.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday demanded Yemen's Houthis immediately end their attacks on ships in the Red Sea and implicitly endorsed a U.S.-led task force that has been defending vessels while cautioning against escalating tensions.

The head of the Islamist group's supreme revolutionary committee Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, however, said that the UN resolution was a "political game" and that the United States was the one violating international law.

(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi, additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Michael Perry and Hugh Lawson)