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The security of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping routes, cannot be safeguarded by Yemen alone and requires shared regional and international commitment, a senior Yemeni official told the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.
Abdullah al-Alimi, vice president of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, said Houthi attacks on maritime traffic have turned the strait's security into what he described as a tool of pressure and bargaining, with consequences reaching far beyond Yemen's borders.
"The Houthi use of maritime security as a tool of blackmail is not only a threat to Yemen, but is holding the global economy hostage," al-Alimi told the assembly's 81st session.
Al-Alimi argued that years of conflict have shown that backing Yemen's internationally recognized government, and building up its economic, security and military capacity, amounts to a direct investment in international security and stability.
He said protecting the strategic passage is "a shared regional and international responsibility that Yemen cannot bear alone."
He linked the fate of the Red Sea corridor directly to conditions inside Yemen, saying a secure Red Sea depends on a stable Yemen, and that stability in Yemen in turn depends on restoring effective state authority.
"There can be no sustainable peace as long as an armed militia remains above the state and outside the law," al-Alimi said, adding that reestablishing the authority of the Yemeni state would contribute directly to regional stability and to protecting one of the world's most important maritime corridors.
Al-Alimi said the Yemeni government had engaged "responsibly and positively" with regional and international peace initiatives and had made significant concessions in an effort to reach a settlement and ease the suffering of Yemeni civilians.
He accused the Houthis of responding to those efforts with intransigence, saying the group used periods of humanitarian truce to build up its military arsenal at the expense of the Yemeni population.
He further accused the Houthis of rejecting peace initiatives and escalating attacks in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait in service of what he called "an Iranian agenda" that extends beyond Yemen's national interests.
Al-Alimi said the threat posed by the Houthis has been compounded by what he called the absence of an effective and decisive international response.
He called on the international community to move toward a strategic partnership with Yemen to reinforce security and stability in the region, saying the government is capable of ending the threat the Houthis pose.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which separates Yemen from the Horn of Africa, links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and serves as a critical passage for global shipping traffic moving between Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal.
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