Ambassador Ahmed Nagi discusses Red Sea escalation with Hungarian foreign ministry official
Yemen Herald News 
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Yemen’s chargé d’affaires in Budapest discussed the fighting in the Red Sea with a senior Hungarian foreign ministry official on Thursday.
Ambassador Ahmed Nagi met János Lasztovka, who heads the Middle East and North Africa department at Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the state news agency Saba reported.
Nagi holds the rank of ambassador and runs the Budapest mission as chargé d’affaires, according to Saba and Yemen’s foreign ministry.
The two discussed bilateral relations between Yemen and Hungary and ways to develop cooperation, according to the agency.
The talks also covered developments inside Yemen, including the military escalation in the Red Sea and around the Bab al-Mandab strait, Saba said.
Saba described the forces involved as Iranian-backed Houthi militias and applied the label terrorist to them. That is the framing of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which the Houthis reject.
The Houthis say their operations are defensive. Their leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, said this week that Saudi Arabia had started the current round of fighting.
The Hungarian official reaffirmed his government’s support for Yemen’s internationally recognised government, Saba reported.
The account of the meeting rests on Saba, the news agency of that government. No independent confirmation of the meeting or of what was said in it has been published, and Hungary’s foreign ministry has issued no statement on it.
Nagi has met Lasztovka before. Yemen’s foreign ministry has recorded earlier talks between the two on bilateral relations, cooperation in higher education and drawing Hungarian companies into government development work.
In one of those meetings the two discussed the United States designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organisation. Nagi said the Yemeni government wanted to shield Yemenis from the effects of the decision, according to the ministry.
The higher education strand of the relationship has a concrete vehicle. Hungary’s Stipendium Hungaricum scholarship programme, founded in 2013 and supervised by the foreign ministry, lists Yemen among the Arab states whose students may apply.
Yemeni applications are nominated through Yemen’s education ministry and forwarded to Hungary’s embassy in Riyadh. Successful applicants apply for visas through the Hungarian consulate there.
The scheme covers tuition, a monthly stipend, a housing allowance and health insurance. It does not pay for international flights.
The programme operates in close to 80 countries and territories and takes in more than 5,000 students a year.
The meeting followed a rapid shift on the ground. Houthi forces took the Red Sea port of Mocha on Sept. 10.
They went on to seize the remainder of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, Perim Island in the middle of the Bab al-Mandab strait, and the Hanish Islands to the north.
The strait is the chokepoint at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, and a route for shipping heading to and from the Suez Canal.
Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, said the gains along the coast are temporary, Saba reported. He said government forces could regain the initiative on the western coast.
The UN Security Council met on Sept. 15 at France’s request. An assistant secretary-general told the council that the Houthi advance towards the chokepoint raised the risk of a wider conflict.
Human Rights Watch said recent Houthi attacks on commercial ships likely amount to war crimes.
Displacement has climbed. The International Organization for Migration said on Sept. 13 that more than 82,000 people had been displaced in Yemen during September, most of them from the west coast.
The UN humanitarian office later put the figure at 125,000.
Local authorities in Taiz counted 65,845 people displaced into the province since August, Saba reported.
Hungary is a member of the European Union, whose foreign affairs spokesman, Anouar El Anouni, urged the Houthis this week to cease all military action and expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s government has pressed European states in recent days to act against the Houthis. Ambassador Mohammed al-Hadhrami asked the Czech Republic and the European Union to designate the group as a terrorist organisation, Saba reported.
Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday that its air defences shot down a drone south of Mecca before it entered restricted airspace over the city. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree denied the group had targeted Mecca.
Saree said the Houthis had attacked an airbase at Khamis Mushait and Aramco facilities at Yanbu. Saudi Arabia did not confirm either attack.
The escalation has reached shipping and energy infrastructure beyond Yemen. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed to most traffic since the current war began, according to The National.
An attack blamed on Iran-aligned fighters in Iraq halted the flow of oil through Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline last week, the newspaper reported. The pipeline had become the kingdom’s main export conduit.
Reuters reported that China privately asked Iranian officials to help rein in the Houthis after Saudi Arabia appealed to Beijing. China publicly called for restraint, dialogue and the restoration of safe navigation.
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed a joint defence agreement in Mecca on Aug. 7. It provides that an armed attack on one member is to be treated as an attack on all.
Gulf and Iranian foreign ministers postponed talks in Oman on the Strait of Hormuz, Saba reported.
Saba did not say whether Nagi and Lasztovka agreed on any further steps, or when the two sides expect to meet again.
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