UK tells Security Council that Iran must end its support for the Houthis

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The United Kingdom has told the United Nations Security Council that Iran must end its long-standing support for the Houthi movement, arguing that the relationship threatens Yemen’s stability at a moment when the country is closer to renewed war than at any time in four years.

The statement was delivered in New York on 13 August by Ambassador Kate Foster, the United Kingdom’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, during the Council’s session on Yemen. She said recent weeks had brought a serious escalation in violence in Yemen and across the wider region, and attributed it to what she described as reckless Houthi actions.

Foster listed three strands of that escalation: drone and missile strikes against Saudi Arabia, attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, and violations of Yemeni airspace by Iranian aircraft. She offered condolences to those killed or injured, naming Yemeni, Pakistani and Indonesian nationals among them, a reference to the missile attack on the cargo ship Tihamah near Mokha earlier in the month. Yemeni officials said four crew members and two Yemeni rescuers died in that strike; Pakistan’s representative told the same Council session that three Pakistani and one Indonesian crew member were among the dead.

Recalling that the Council had issued a message of condemnation the previous week, the ambassador urged the Houthis to concentrate on achieving peace and easing the suffering of Yemenis rather than drawing the country into a wider regional conflict. She restated British support for the sovereignty and security of both Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Iran has consistently denied supplying weapons to the Houthis, a denial that Western governments and the UN Panel of Experts have repeatedly disputed.

The second part of the British statement dealt with the humanitarian consequences. Foster said more than 22 million people in Yemen require humanitarian assistance, more than 18 million face food insecurity and over 2.2 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. Because the country depends heavily on imported food and fuel, she argued, it remains unusually exposed to further shocks, and with the Food and Agriculture Organization warning of drought risks and worsening food insecurity, a return to large-scale fighting would turn a dire situation into a catastrophe.

She said the United Kingdom would continue working with partners on the humanitarian response, building on more than 180 million dollars of British funding for life-saving assistance during the previous year. That commitment was made against a background described at the same meeting by Tom Fletcher, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, who told members that Yemen’s humanitarian appeal is barely a fifth funded and that six million people are experiencing emergency levels of deprivation, the highest number recorded anywhere.

Foster also pressed the question of detained personnel, saying Britain remains deeply concerned by the Houthis’ continued detention of 73 United Nations staff along with many more people working for non-governmental organisations and civil society groups, some held for more than two years. She called for their immediate and unconditional release and for humanitarian workers to be allowed to operate safely and without obstruction. The UN Special Envoy, Hans Grundberg, made the same demand in his briefing.

The third element of the statement was more forward-looking. The United Kingdom welcomed the appointment of Dr Afrah Al-Zouba as Yemen’s first female Foreign Minister and said it looked forward to working with her and the wider government to support reforms and strengthen security and stability, including through the country’s new National Development Strategy. Foster closed by saying the choices made now would determine whether Yemen moves towards peace or slips back into deeper conflict, and reaffirmed British backing for an intra-Yemeni peace process under United Nations auspices.

The British intervention sat within a briefing in which Grundberg warned that Yemen faces a more serious risk of returning to large-scale conflict than at any point since the truce mediated by the United Nations in 2022. He cited an unauthorised flight from Tehran towards Sanaa that was followed by airstrikes on the capital’s airport, missile attacks on Abha airport in southern Saudi Arabia and strikes on Saudi oil facilities, and said attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden risk deepening Yemen’s entanglement with the wider regional confrontation.

Not every member framed the problem the same way. Russia’s delegate argued that the stagnation of the peace process had dragged the Houthis into a confrontation she said was initiated by the United States and Israel, and called for negotiations to resume on terms that account for all leading political forces in Yemen. China’s representative said the Yemeni file could not be separated from the wider region and urged full implementation of the Gaza ceasefire alongside a return by Washington and Tehran to the understanding reached in June.

The divergence matters because it shapes what the Council can agree. Members were broadly united in condemning attacks on merchant shipping, but the disagreement over responsibility, and in particular over Iran’s role, has so far prevented movement beyond statements. The session on 13 August ended without any new Council measure, leaving the British call on Tehran as a national position rather than a collective demand.