UK tells Security Council Iran must end its support for the Houthis as it reaffirms Yemen’s sovereignty
Yemen Herald News 
Britain has reaffirmed its commitment to Yemen’s sovereignty and called on Iran to end its long-standing support for the Houthis, in a statement delivered to the United Nations Security Council in New York on 13 August 2026. The remarks were made by Ambassador Kate Foster, the United Kingdom’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, at a Council session convened as fighting in Yemen reached its most serious level in four years.
Foster told the Council that recent weeks had brought a serious escalation in violence in Yemen and the wider region as a result of what she called reckless Houthi actions. She listed three strands: drone and missile strikes against Saudi Arabia, attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, and violations of Yemeni airspace by Iranian aircraft.
“Iran must cease its long-standing support for the Houthis, which threatens Yemen’s stability,” she said. Britain, she added, reiterates its unwavering commitment to the sovereignty and security of Yemen and of Saudi Arabia, and to broader regional stability. The formulation places the airspace question alongside the maritime and cross-border attacks as a matter of Yemeni statehood rather than of regional rivalry alone.
Britain’s position at the Council carries some weight in the Yemen file beyond its permanent seat. The United Kingdom is the penholder on Yemen, meaning it drafts the Council’s resolutions and presidential statements on the country, and its formulations frequently shape the language that the Council as a whole eventually adopts. Statements of this kind are therefore read closely in Aden, Sanaa, Riyadh and Tehran for signals about where the Council’s collective position is heading.
The statement did not set out the individual incidents behind the airspace complaint. Reports circulating before the session described Iranian aircraft landing in Yemen without the approval of the competent Yemeni authorities, an act the internationally recognised government has characterised as a breach of its sovereignty and of international law. The Houthis, who control Sanaa and its airport, dispute the government’s authority over the territory they hold.
Foster offered condolences to those killed or injured in the escalation, naming Yemeni, Pakistani and Indonesian nationals. The reference points to the attack on the merchant vessel Tihamah in the Bab al-Mandab strait, in which crew members including three Pakistanis and an Indonesian were killed, and to the missile and drone strikes on the government-held port city of al-Mokha, which killed soldiers and civilians.
She noted that the Council had delivered a clear message of condemnation of Houthi actions the previous week, together with a call for de-escalation, and urged the group to focus on efforts to achieve peace and to alleviate the suffering of Yemenis rather than seeking to embroil Yemen in a wider regional conflict. That framing, distinguishing Yemen’s own conflict from the regional confrontation, has become a recurring theme of Western statements at the Council.
The second half of the British statement dealt with the humanitarian situation, which Foster said the escalation was compounding. More than 22 million people in Yemen require humanitarian assistance, over 18 million face food insecurity, and more than 2.2 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. As a country heavily dependent on imported food and fuel, she said, Yemen remains particularly vulnerable to further shocks.
Those vulnerabilities are compounding one another. Humanitarian funding is under strain, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned of drought risks that would deepen food insecurity further. A return to large-scale conflict, Foster said, would turn an already dire situation into a catastrophe, a judgement echoed by aid agencies operating on the ground, several of which have already curtailed field movements.
Britain said it would continue to work with partners to support the humanitarian response, building on more than 180 million dollars of UK funding provided last year for life-saving assistance. The pledge came without a new figure attached, at a moment when the 2026 response plan for Yemen remains financed at a fraction of what agencies say it requires.
Foster also raised the continued detention by the Houthis of 73 United Nations staff, along with many more personnel from non-governmental organisations and civil society, a number of whom have been held for more than two years. She said the group must immediately and unconditionally release all those detained and allow humanitarian actors to operate safely and without obstruction. The detentions have severely constrained the ability of UN agencies to work in northern Yemen.
On the political track, the United Kingdom welcomed the appointment of Dr Afrah Al-Zouba as Yemen’s first female foreign minister, saying it looked forward to working with her and the wider government to support reforms and to strengthen security and stability, including through the new Yemen National Development Strategy. The appointment is among the more visible changes in the government’s composition in recent months.
Foster closed by arguing that the choices made now will determine whether Yemen moves closer to peace or slips back towards deeper conflict and humanitarian crisis, and restated British support for the role of the UN special envoy and for an intra-Yemeni peace process under United Nations auspices. Whether that process can be revived depends on decisions being taken well away from the Council chamber, on front lines that have started moving again for the first time since 2022.
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