Iran agrees to stop arming Houthis in Yemen as part of pact With Saudi Arabia: WSJ

Iran has agreed to halt covert weapons shipments to its Houthi allies in Yemen as part of a China-brokered deal to re-establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, US and Saudi officials said, a move that could inject new momentum into efforts to end one of the region’s longest-running civil wars.

For years, Saudi Arabia and Iran have backed opposing sides in the Yemen conflict, fueling a war that has had disastrous humanitarian consequences and spilled beyond the country’s borders as Houthi forces have launched missile and drone attacks on the Saudi kingdom.

If Tehran does stop arming the Houthis, it could put pressure on the militant group to reach a deal to end the conflict, the US and Saudi officials said.

A spokesman for the Iranian delegation to the United Nations declined to comment when asked whether Tehran would suspend arms shipments. Tehran publicly denies that it supplies the Houthis with weapons, but UN inspectors have repeatedly traced seized weapons shipments back to Iran.

After Saudi Arabia and Iran announced the deal to re-establish diplomatic ties seven years after they were severed, officials in both countries said that Iran would press the Houthis to end attacks on Saudi Arabia. One Saudi official said that the kingdom expects Iran to respect a UN arms embargo meant to prevent weapons from reaching the Houthis. A cutoff of weapons supplies could make it harder for the militants to strike the kingdom and seize more ground in Yemen.

US and Saudi officials said they want to see if Iran holds up its end of the bargain as Tehran and Riyadh proceed with plans outlined in the deal to reopen their respective embassies in two months. The agreement to resume Saudi-Iran relations “gives a boost to the prospect of a [Yemen] deal in the near future,” while Iran’s approach to the conflict will be “kind of a litmus test” for the success of last week’s diplomatic deal, one US official said.

The Wall Street Journal