Houthis threaten to shut Sanaa airport to UN planes
A top Houthi rebel official threatened Thursday to
bar UN planes from using the Sanaa airport unless peace talks in Sweden lead to
its full reopening, Sky News reported.
"If the Yemeni capital's airport is not opened
to the Yemeni people in the peace talks in Sweden, I call on the (rebel)
political council and government to close the airport for all planes,"
Mohammed Ali al Houthi tweeted.
The Houthi rebels want the airport to be fully
reopened because this facilitates the transfer of weapons from Tehran to Sanaa
on board Iranian planes.
The Houthi-held airport receives UN planes laden
with relief aid to the Yemeni people.
The Houthi leader's remarks came before the start of
UN-backed peace talks between the Yemeni government and the Houthi delegation
in Sweden.
The Sweden talks mark the first attempt in two years
to broker an end to the Yemeni conflict, which has killed at least 10,000
people since 2015 and triggered what the UN calls the world's worst
humanitarian crisis.
Some 14 million people are at imminent risk of starvation
in Yemen, according to UN estimates, as a Saudi-led military coalition
continues to battle the country's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
