Muhammad Bin Salaman Asks Vladimir Putin To Intercede In The Yemeni Conflict
KABUL: (Middle East Press) Prince Muhammad Bin Salaman, the Saudi Defense Minister and the deputy crown prince, has paid a visit to Moscow where he met in the Kremlin with the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Saudi Defense Minister who conveyed the Saudi monarch’s warm regards to Mr. Putin, has urged the Russian president to help Saudi Arabia to extricate itself from the various crises that gripped the oil-rich kingdom.
Wide range of issues were discussed during the meeting between the Saudi delegation and Russian president ,as the Saudi official pleaded Mr. Putin to take a more serious role in the Yemeni crisis.
The deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia also made a request for Russian help to find a political solution to Saudi’s Yemen dilemma, in the light of Moscow’s cordial relationship with Iran, their common stance regarding the Yemeni crisis, and furthermore their close ties with Yemeni revolutionaries.
The Saudi official has informed Mr. Putin that Riyadh is no more insisting on previous agenda of restoring Yemen’s ousted President, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and only has been striving to curb the Houthis and merely punish them.
Mr. Putin, for his part, denounced the Saudi-led war on impoverished Yemen and the constant targeting of the civilian populated areas by Saudi Air Force that prompted the Saudi prince to vindicate the Saudi actions by saying that Riyadh was only trying to prevent Iran’s rising influence in the Arabian Gulf.
The Saudi Minster noted that the Saudi Arabia sought to annihilate the Shiite Houthis and thwart their territorial expansion but to detriment of Riyadh, many of its regional and international allies have abandoned their commitments to support the Saudi kingdom in its campaign against its southern neighbor.
This led ultimately, added Bin Salman, to the fact that Yemen is now fully controlled Houthis and moreover, they [Houthis] are encroaching further into three southern Saudi provinces and not by any means, it is acceptable for policymakers in Riyadh.
Prince Muhammad has asked for Russia’s urgent mediation and urged Putin to convince Iranians and Houthis to accept some of Saudi terms so a political solution can be achieved for Yemen’s three-month crisis.
