Local Editor

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia’s aggression against Yemen is a "strategic mistake".

"Saudi Arabia’s aggression in Yemen has become a strategic mistake. These incorrect actions will of course have negative impacts for the region’s security, as well as for the security of Saudi Arabia and Yemen", Sputnik quoted Abdollahian, who is in Moscow for an official visit, as saying on Tuesday. 

The senior Iranian official made the remarks during a press conference at Russia’s Rossiya Segodnya news agency.

He further said that the Saudi aggression on Yemen is the main reason behind the growing rise of extremist tendency in the impoverished country.

"Saudi Arabia’s brute-force approach has triggered a surge in extremist activities in Yemen. We must raise global awareness of the Yemeni issue. If we don’t resolve it in time, the rise in terrorism and the stream of refugees coming to Europe will intensify", he said.

In his remarks, Abdollahian stressed that, "There are no military advisers from Iran in Yemen. We have not and are not supplying any weapons to this country."

He underlined that Iran welcomes dialogue among the Yemeni warring factions, emphasizing that the Islamic Republic will continue to deliver its humanitarian aid to Yemen.

He added that the only way to resolve the crisis in Yemen is resorting to political dialogue.

A Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States has been carrying out a military aggression on Yemen by launching airstrikes against the country since March 26. The airstrikes have not been authorized by the United Nations [UN].

The ’civilian’ death toll in Yemen has risen to more than 2,000 with more than 4,000 other civilians wounded in the fighting in the country that has raged for more than a year now, according to the United Nations [UN] recently this week. 

The US-led Saudi aggression began in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to the country’s fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Saudi Arabia.