The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has officially notified Congress that it will remove Yemen’s Ansarullah movement from the terror list.
“Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken was clear to conduct a rapid review of Ansarullah’s designations as a terrorist organization because of the profound implications for the people of Yemen, where the world’s worst humanitarian disaster is ravaging,” a State Department official, who was not named, confirmed Friday.
Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy saw the U.S. decision as another good move by the U.S. government.
The decision comes a day after the Biden administration announced an end to U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen.
Ex-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Jan. 11, nine days before new U.S. President Joe Biden took office, that the U.S. State Department had already informed Congress of its decision to add Yemen’s Ansarullah to the list for “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Trump’s administration made this decision while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have launched massive attacks on Yemen since 2015 with the support of the United States and the United Kingdom.
Yemen Supreme Political Council member Mohammed Ali al-Houthi on Saturday described the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw support for the Yemen war as “insufficient.”
“The US decision to end its participation [in the war] and command over the aggressor states is not enough. This is the first practical measure that Washington must take,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi wrote in a post published early Saturday on his official Twitter page.
“Following the U.S. decision to cease military support for offensive military operations in Yemen, Washington’s allies must also commit to compensating victims, enacting a package of measures to ensure Yemen’s sovereignty, recognizing its independence and legitimate right to self-defense, and considering any military action by Arab or foreign states as a criminal act,” al-Houthi continued.
In this regard, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, another member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, said the U.S. government must understand that actions speak louder than words.
Bukhaiti told the Lebanese and Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news channel on Friday night that the Ansarullah Movement and the National Salvation Government in Yemen are ready to end the crisis and war in the Arab country.
“We are ready for talks, but the mechanism of the previous talks was not right,” he stressed.
“If the U.S. government is honest, this would practically mean the end of the [Saudi Arabia-led] aggression against Yemen. The war in Yemen will end as soon as all airstrikes stop and foreign forces leave the country,” Bukhaiti continued.
by Jeremy Abbott – American Correspondent – WPN