Saudi Arabia has denied a report by the US-based Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Yemen\u2019s Houthis had demanded $51 billion from kingdom in return for a \u201cnegotiated halt\u201d to the ongoing hostilities between the two sides.
\nA report by the Journal claimed on Thursday that the kingdom had approached the Houthis \u201cto see what it would take to arrive at a negotiated halt to the hostilities\u201d, and the group demanded $51bn in return.
\nThe report, citing unnamed sources, further claimed that the Houthis would want to be \u201cofficially recognised \u2026 as the rulers of Yemen\u201d.
\nBut Saudi Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Ambassador Rayed Krimly \u201ccategorically\u201d denied the claims about \u201cdemands made by this militia\u201d.
\n\u201cAll of this is pure fabrication by the writers or their alleged sources,\u201d he said in a post on X. The Saudi official further stated that \u201cthese militias turned against the Yemeni government, caused famine among the Yemeni people, and dragged Yemen into conflicts and agendas that do not serve Yemen and its people\u201d.
\n\u201cThey attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea waterways, civilian and economic targets, and rejected all peace efforts.
\nWe also remind the writers that Yemen has a recognised government,\u201d he said. The WSJ report and the Saudi denial has come amid renewed hostilities between Riyadh and the Houthis, linked to the larger Middle East conflict.
\nThe Middle East war erupted on February 28 when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, prompting Tehran to retaliate with strikes across the region. Then in July, the Houthis triggered a return to hostilities in Yemen when they let an Iranian plane land in defiance of Saudi control of Yemeni airspace.
\nThe government retaliated by striking the airport, with ensuing exchanges unravelling a 2022 truce in Yemen\u2019s long-running civil war. Since then, the Houthis have declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, attacking its tankers in the Red Sea, as well as the Saudi territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Arabia has denied a report by the US-based Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Yemen\u2019s Houthis had demanded $51 billion from kingdom in return for a \u201cnegotiated halt\u201d to the ongoing hostilities between the two sides. A report by the Journal claimed on Thursday that the kingdom had approached the Houthis \u201cto see what it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105510,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105486\/revisions\/105510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}