Iran reject closure of embassy in Yemen

Rasa - The Iranian foreign ministry on Tuesday rejected Arab media reports that Tehran's embassy in Sana'a has been closed, stressing that the mission continues operation.

News ID: 3315

Date: 09 September 2015 - 12:25

RNA - Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham rejected media reports claiming that Iran has closed its embassy in Sana'a as rumors, and said that "the Iranian embassy in Sana'a continues operation as usual, while Iranian Ambassador to Yemen Seyed Hossein Niknam returned to the country yesterday to use his annual leave."

She also dismissed certain Arab media reports claiming that Iran's embassy in Sana'a is acting as an operations room to command the resistance Yemeni groups.

"Such fake news are released to divert and weaken the Yemeni people and groups' role in their 6-month-long under-siege resistance and fighting against the foreign aggressors, terrorists and Takfiri groups inside Yemen and they are baseless," she said.

Her remarks came after Yemen’s fugitive Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin claimed on Sunday that the Iranian embassy in Yemen’s capital Sana’a is offering financial, strategic, and military advisory support to the Houthis in country.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Yassin, who is in Saudi Arabia, claimed that Iran’s embassy in Sana’a had become a “Houthi operations room”.

He also claimed in an interview with the Saudi al-Akhbaria news channel that he would announce severance of Yemen's diplomatic ties with Iran and closure of the Iranian embassy in Sana'a in the next few hours after consulting with fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Yassin and President Hadi fled Yemen several months ago and have no executive power in Yemen.

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