UN peace role disappointing over Yemen: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Ken Stone, with the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, in Hamilton, Canada, on the prospects of peace in Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN envoy to Yemen, seems pretty sure that there will be a ceasefire in place before the talks on December 15. Do you think that is a possibility though?

Stone: Well, one can only hope that the UN envoy is correct that in hopping and in predicting that there will be a ceasefire, because already 7,500 Yemeni civilians have been killed and 15,000 have been wounded.

But on the other hand, the Ansarullah movement is completely within its rights when it says it will not go to the talks in Switzerland unless the Saudi government stops its illegal aggression against the sovereign country of Yemen.

And we need to note that the Saudi government is not engaging in this invasion alone. It has the backing of the United States of America and Israel. On top of that, it couldn’t wage this aggression without arms purchases from the West and has made huge arms purchases from the government of Canada, France, Britain, the US and also because it has no infantry divisions of its own that are reliable, it is forced to rent its mercenaries from Morocco, from Sudan, even from Colombia.

So, we can say that the Saudi government is engaged in a massive war crime with the complete backing of the neo-colonial powers of the West. And the Ansarullah movement is completely justified in saying, ‘Until that aggression ends, we won’t come to talk.’

Press TV: Right now, Mr. Stone, as you say, that Saudi Arabia has been conducting its aggression against Yemen with the backing of the West; then it raises the question about the UN’s role when it comes to bringing peace in Yemen. Many are claiming that the UN has been very complacent in trying to bring this aggression to a halt.

Stone: Unfortunately, the UN has been disappointing in its role as the peace-broker of the world and specifically in the case of Yemen, because it has not condemned Saudi Arabia for its aggression against Yemen. And that’s because, at the United Nations currently, the Western powers seem to have the predominance of power.

In fact, Saudi Arabia has a privileged relation with the countries of the West because it provides for them the boots on the ground; by boots on the ground I mean the terrorist mercenaries that they use in Syria and Iraq for example and now even in north of Yemen, these Daesh mercenaries.

So, the Saudi government has not been condemned at the United Nations in the way it should have been.

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