The Voice of Ummah: Ahead of the 52nd session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers, which opened in Baghdad on Saturday, Yemen’s Sanaa government has called on Muslim countries to play a positive role in ending the Saudi-led aggression and blockade imposed on Yemen for more than a decade.
According to Saba, Yemen’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates issued a statement on Friday citing the Quranic verse from Surah Al-Hujurat, “And if two factions among the believers should fight, then make settlement between the two,” and urged Islamic states to pursue reconciliation. The ministry expressed hope that the meeting would not accept what it called the “great slander” by the Saudi government that Yemen targets Makkah and Madinah, saying the claim insults a people ready to sacrifice their lives to protect Islam’s holy sites. It also urged member states to verify such claims, citing another verse of the same surah.
Message to the OIC: “Ready to refute the claims before any neutral country”
The statement said Sanaa’s demands are legitimate and reasonable, not impossible, and centre on ending the aggression and the blockade. Over 12 years, the ministry said, civilians, particularly women and children, have been targeted along with homes, hospitals, schools, airports, roads, bridges, markets and mosques, while starvation has been used as a weapon of war through economic restrictions, salary cuts, the closure of Sanaa International Airport and the blockade of ports. The ministry said it was ready to refute the Saudi allegations before any fair and neutral country, and affirmed that navigation in the Red Sea is safe.
Read More: Yemeni Missiles Hit Saudi Command HQ at Aden’s Badr Camp
“An Omani-brokered roadmap, then Riyadh backed away”
Deputy Foreign Minister Abdulwahid Abu Ras sent letters to the foreign ministers of several Muslim countries saying Sanaa had engaged in the latest Omani-sponsored consultations, which produced a roadmap, but the Saudi government backed away from what had been agreed and sought to entrench a state of “no peace, no war.” The letters said the current escalation began on July 13 with a strike on Sanaa International Airport aimed at preventing a humanitarian flight carrying passengers and patients.
Since then, Abu Ras said, more than 2,350 airstrikes and missile attacks have martyred 107 people and injured 278, with women and children accounting for more than 60 percent of the victims. He said Sanaa’s hand remains extended for a just, honourable and lasting peace and is open to efforts by brotherly countries, while it continues to exercise its right to self-defence.
According to Anadolu Agency, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi opened the OIC meeting, and Iraq took over the organization’s rotating presidency from Türkiye. Held under the theme “Dialogue and Solidarity,” the two-day session is addressing Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and other crises across the Muslim world.
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