WASHINGTON DC - US President Barack Obama warned Iran against sending any arms to the Houthi rebels in Yemen, saying that the conflict there could threaten American navigation in the region.
“We’ve been actually very straightforward to them (Iranians),” Obama told MSNBC’s Hardball program on Tuesday.
“Right now their ships are in international waters. There’s a reason why we keep some of our ships in the Persian Gulf region and that is to make sure we maintain freedom of navigation. And what we’ve said to them is if there are weapons delivered to factions within Yemen that could threaten navigation, that’s a problem,” he added.
“We are not sending them obscure messages,” said Obama, on the day that Saudi Arabia announced it had ended its bombing campaign in neighboring Yemen. “We are sending them very direct messages about it.”
Traditional regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia are at opposite ends in Yemen, with Tehran backing the anti-government Shiite Houthis and Riyadh just announcing an end to three weeks of air raids on the rebels. The United States has deployed warships to the region to intercept Iranian arms.
Obama said that Iranian arms to any of the warring parties in Yemen would worsen the situation. He added that Yemen “has always been a fractious country with a lot of problems. It is very poor. And right now there are a lot of people inside of Yemen suffering.”
The US president said that the conflict can only come to end through a political arrangement and that Iran has been asked to be part of the solution.
“What we need to do is bring all the parties together and find a political arrangement,” Obama told the broadcast. “It is not solved by having another proxy war in Yemen. We’ve indicated to the Iranians that they need to be part of the solution, and not part of the problem.”
Obama also said that the US was concerned about Russia’s sale of S-300 air-to-surface missile defense system to Iran, but he played down any threat that it may pose to the US.
“This is a sale that’s been pending for six years,” he said. “It’s of concern. We object to it particularly because right now we’re still negotiating.”
He added: “We have to keep this in perspective. Our defense budget is somewhere just a little under $600 billion. Theirs is a little over $17 billion. Even if they’ve got some air defense systems, if we had to, we could penetrate them.”
Regarding the recent agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, Obama commented: “My goal is not to resolve conflicts and contentions in the region through more war. My goal is to make sure that we are able to negotiate a deal that we can verify, that ensures Israel is safe, that ensures that neighbors like Saudi Arabia and countries in the Gulf region are safe and ensures that there is no nuclear arms race in the region.”
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