Top Iranian Security Official Slams Saudi War on Yemen
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Shamkhani denounced the Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen as a brazen violation of human rights.
In a meeting with Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan General Qamar Javed Bajwa in Tehran on Tuesday, Shamkhani took a swipe at Saudi Arabia for waging a war on Yemen.
The top Iranian security official said the full-fledged Saudi-led aggression against people of Yemen is a blatant example of creating and spreading insecurity in the region and a clear violation of human rights.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
According to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.
The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.
Shamkhani further highlighted the Islamic Republic’s policy of strengthening cooperation with regional and neighboring countries, including with Pakistan.
He also said that economic cooperation between Iran and Pakistan, particularly in border areas, would contribute to the welfare of the residents of border areas and to the security of the common border.
The Pakistani general, for his part, described the common border between Iran and Pakistan as the border of peace and friendship, stressing that Islamabad would take serious action against any evil measure or insecurity in those areas.
The Islamic world’s top priority is collective action against the dangerous strategy that extra-regional countries pursue to create war and bloodshed in Muslim nations, Bajwa added.
He also praised Iran for supporting the oppressed Muslim people of Palestine.
The visiting Pakistani general has held meetings with other Iranian officials, including Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri and Army Commander Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi.
In April, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan agreed to set up a joint rapid reaction unit along the common border to combat terrorism.
Iranian military forces along the southeastern border areas are frequently attacked by terrorist groups coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In February, a bus carrying IRGC personnel was traveling between the cities of Zahedan and Khash in Sistan and Balouchestan, when it was targeted in a suicide car bomb attack.
Twenty-seven IRGC members were killed and 13 others injured in the attack, claimed by the so-called Jaish ul-Adl terrorist group based in Pakistan.
