Tehran Disputes, Arms Transfer to Yemen

YemenExtra

Senior officials have disputed the evidence that the United States claims points to Iran’s supply of weapons to Houthi, in Yemen, as Washington escalated efforts to put pressure on Tehran.

US President Donald Trump’s administration took ambassadors from the United Nations Security Council on a field trip to inspect what American officials claimed were remnants of Iranian missiles and other weaponry illegally supplied to the Houthis, the New York Times reported.

The missile fragments, along with other military equipment, were first unveiled last month by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN.

In a tweet on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US is “fabricating” evidence against Iran.

“A while ago US showed a Saudi-supplied Iranian missile intact. They must’ve been told a missile destroyed by a Patriot does not land fully assembled,” he said, adding that the missile fragments presented to the UNSC countries bear the logo of the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran, which is placed on foodstuffs in the country.

“Try fabricating ‘evidence’ again,” Zarif said, in an apparent reference to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq based on false information about weapons of mass destruction.

Zarif earlier wrote on Twitter that the objective of the field trip is to create an “Iranophobic narrative” at the UN Security Council—through wining and dining and fake ‘evidence’.”

The ambassadors were also White House lunch guests of Trump, who pressed them to counter “Iran’s destabilization activities in the Middle East.”

Iran has dismissed accusations that its regional activities are destabilizing.

Haley has presented the military equipment as proof that Iran had violated UN sanctions on supplies of weaponry to Houthi fighters in Yemen, where more than 10,000 people have died in a war that began three years ago.

Most of the materials were provided to the US government by Saudi Arabia.