A Conversation With President Rashad Al-Alimi of Yemen

President Rashad Al-Alimi discusses  Yemen’s foreign policy priorities, regional security, and the country’s humanitarian situation.

ANDERSON: Good morning. I am delighted to welcome you all here to join President Rashad al-Alimi, the chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, to talk with us this morning. He is a longtime member of the Yemen government, serving as minister of the interior, deputy prime minister in charge of defense and security affairs, member of the National Dialog Conference, and advisor to the president. He assumed his present office in April 2022. He is also, and if you don’t have questions of him, I will ask him questions about his dissertation research. He is a social scientist, and he did his work on things that we’re both interested in.

So let me remind you, I will be talking with the president for about half an hour and then we’ll open it to questions from you all.

Sir, it’s nice to have you here. So let me start then with the situation in Yemen itself. The war in Gaza, now apparently extending to Lebanon, has drawn world attention away from Yemen in some important ways, but for the several Houthi attacks on Israel and U.S. shipping, which I will return to later. But perhaps you can give us a sense of what’s going on within the country. How is the security situation? We hear less about that these days.

(Note: President al-Alimi speaks through an interpreter.)

AL-ALIMI: Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to attend this meeting with this distinguished group. I’m very happy to speak today in this meeting. The situation in Yemen, I believe that many scholars, and many politicians, and those interested in the situation are fully aware of the situation in Yemen. By way of example, after the composition of the Leadership Council in April 2022, we declared—we announced that we are seeking peace. We are not a war council. We took actual steps towards the accomplishment of those objectives. The first among which was an effort made by the U.N. through its special envoy to Yemen to reach a truce with the Houthis.

Unfortunately, this truce was breached by the Houthis more than one time. They carried out a number of attacks on various places in the places—in the areas under the control of the legitimate government, among which are the oil facilities, which cost these Yemeni people 70 percent of the basic resources that needed for it. Nevertheless, our efforts continued. We have responded to all the initiatives related to the establishment of peace and stability in Yemen.

However, this process was consistently faced by the Houthis, by evasion of the peace process, and going towards war, and to carrying out repeated terrorist attacks—the latest of which, of course, is the attacks on international navigation in the Red Sea, and linking them to the situation in Gaza. We believe that this is untrue—completely untrue. The Houthis have attacked—carried out attacks in the Red Sea before that. They held the vessel Sothur (ph). They took it as a hostage in front of the international community, the regional community, and the Yemeni people. They did not allow the unloading of the oil carried by this vessel.

We do not believe that the peace plan with the Houthis today is on the table of the Leadership Council, or at the regional or global level, because there are regional variables. There are many variables. As you said, the events that are taking place are extending to Lebanon. Therefore, even the roadmap that was—indeed, that the brothers in Saudi Arabia made huge efforts to reached, we approved it in the Leadership Council. However, it froze because of the attacks carried out by the Houthis against the international navigation in the Red Sea.

ANDERSON: Is there a realistic military solution? I mean, at this point there doesn’t seem to be a, if you will, diplomatic solution. So how do you envision coming to some conclusion?

AL-ALIMI: The U.S. has adopted an approach that deals with the containment of the Houthis through military presence in the—in the Red Sea. The EU also has presence in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. But within the strategy of containment and not deterrence. Our viewpoint in the government is that the policy of containment will not put an end to the threats caused by the Houthis to the navigation in the Red Sea, or the threat to security and stability in Yemen and in the region at large, and on a global level as well. Our viewpoint in the Leadership Council, we do not call for a return to war. We are advocates of peace. But there has to be a policy of deterrence to eliminate those capabilities that have been formed—the Houthis, with the support of the regime in Iran and Hezbollah, unfortunately, because there are experts there from both Hezbollah and Iran.

This creation of a hotbed that threatens international, regional, and local security calls for a strategic partnership between the legitimate government, and the region, and the international community—at the forefront of which is the United States—to put an end to those threats and to eliminate them. At the same time, we do not wish to see future threats to international peace and security. The threat will continue, even if the war in Gaza comes to an end. The proof of that is that the terrorist actions taken by the group before Gaza was a testimony to the actions they took in the Red Sea and the attacks they carried out against the countries of the region—namely Saudi Arabia and UAE—as well as the attacks on the vital oil facilities in Yemen.

About a month ago, they attacked the Sothur (ph) facilities by drones. There needs to be a policy of deterrence for this threat. We agree with our regional and international partners on that. Second, there has to be economic and political support for the government to create a model of the areas under the control of the legitimate government, to which people will rally, whether in the areas that are under the control of the government or those under the control of the militias.

The other point is that we would like the international community, headed by the United States and America, to incentivize donors regionally and internationally to provide more economic support for the government of Yemen in order to be able to discharge its functions. Our local resources meet only 30 percent of the vital needs—services and pensions and salaries. The Houthis pay no salaries. They pay no pensions. They pay no social security. But we, in the legitimate government, pay the salaries of the civil servants. We pay the social security and pensions for the retirees.

And this is our responsibility towards our citizens, which is contrary to the acts carried out by the militias, through taking huge resources, particularly Hodeidah Port. And they use it in—for their war effort. The agreement of Stockholm that was imposed by the international community on the legitimate government, one of the terms was that part of the resources of the Hodeidah Port would go towards the payment of the salaries of the civil servants. However, the militias did not comply with this. And they expropriated forty billion for their own military efforts. And after that, they took this amount of money and the taxes levied in order to strengthen their military efforts and to develop their ballistic weapons and its drones, with the support of Iran and experts from Hezbollah.

ANDERSON: OK. I’m going to come back to the sort of regional context in a minute, but I did want to push you a little bit on what is understood in the international community as a real humanitarian crisis. Talk a little bit about what your government is trying to do to address that. And, again, as you say, clearly, there’s an international element to that. But tell us what—how the government is approaching the fact that there does seem still to be a really significant humanitarian challenge in Yemen.

AL-ALIMI: We’re facing huge challenges, difficult challenges in the government. As I just said, we only have 30 percent of the resources needed, and we lost 70 percent after the militias attacked the oil facilities. We used to get about $1.6 billion in the export of oil and gas. These resources have come to a halt now. Now we only have 30 percent of our limited budget. And we have our obligations and commitments, again, the obligations towards the salaries, social security, pensions. We also have the operational budget for services such as water, health, and such like.

We need to receive support. We receive support from Saudi Arabia. The financial resources that we cover—by which we cover the salaries and the pensions and we pay our commitments for the students abroad and our embassies abroad, and we even support students from the areas under the control of militias. We provide them with financial support in all countries. We have health services that we provide in the liberated areas. It’s the bare minimum. But the international community, the World Bank, for instance—I was in meeting with them at the U.N. They have projects, many projects. International organizations are providing support in this field, particularly in the field of renewable energy.

We have now more than 700 facilities in health and education sectors that depend on renewable and solar energy. We are expanding this field. We have one hundred megawatts of renewable energy, with the support of our brothers in the UAE, in Saudi Arabia. They established a hospital that has about 350 beds. And it’s free services for the poor and the needy in Aden. And they come from all parts of Yemen. And even the areas under the control of the militias, they get free treatment in that hospital. We are discharging our duties towards our citizens within the limits of the resources we have available.

But we are facing difficulties. We need more support in regional support, support from the international community, and international organizations, because there are areas of conflict in various parts. And many in the U.N. who are saying that there are many conflicts, and the amount of money that come from the donors go to the other parts—in Ukraine, and in Sudan, and in other areas. Nevertheless, we continue to make our efforts all the time to provide all we can in terms of those needs, even at the level of education.

Today we—I can say, for example, we have gone into partnership with the internet Starlink to provide remote learning for our citizens through that service, because you are aware that in the liberated areas we do not have communications companies. They were all in the capital somehow, which is under the control of Houthis. And all the money that comes from those companies go to those militias. These are huge resources. They use these means of communication to spy on the institutions of the legitimate government and to follow citizens through spying on their phones, including in the areas that are under our control.

Some citizens go to the areas under their control, and they are—they are apprehended. They have told that you wrote such-and-such on WhatsApp. There are tens of thousands of men, women, and elderly in prisons, simply because of the spyware used by these militias against our citizens. And we had to reach an agreement with Starlink in order to provide services through satellites, in order to be able to establish corporations that are not under the control of those militias, or to free themselves from the security services of those militias.

ANDERSON: It is a pretty complicated picture you’re painting. I appreciate sharing that with us, because I think we tend not to understand all of the internal details like that. Let me turn now to sort of regional politics. You’ve mentioned it several times, but following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Houthis were sort of surprisingly involved in that, if you will. People didn’t perhaps, outside of Yemen, expect that this would be something where they would be sending missiles to Israel and so forth. Were you surprised? And how do you interpret what they decided to do?

AL-ALIMI: I was not surprised at all. The matter of the Houthis with the (Khomeini call ?), everybody knows their motto and their calls, “death to America,” “death to Israel,” a curse on Jews, victory for Islam. This is their motto ever since this militia was formed. This group, many scholars are not aware that it was formed at an early stage, almost at the same time with the establishment of Hezbollah in Lebanon, theirselves started in 1983. They carried out terrorist actions in Sanaa in 1984. They attacked cinemas, one of the guards of the Cinema Bilcase (ph) that—many of the Yemenis here know that cinema house, on Tahrir (ph) Street—(inaudible). They attacked it with bombs. They attacked women who are not veiled on the street. They attacked them with chemical substances. These cells went to Iran. They were trained. They came back in 1984 to carry out these terrorist actions.

When I was the minister of the interior, they carried out their terrorist actions against the local authorities in Saada. One of the first things they did was attacking the houses of the Jews. We had coexistence with the Jews in Yemen. They are part of the Yemeni people. They exercise their faith and they live freely with us. Their houses were attacked by the Houthis in Saada in 2005. They destroyed their homes. They expelled them from Saada. At that time, I was the minister of interior. I received them in Sanaa. I rented houses for them. And there is a tourist city that many people here might know right next to the Sheraton Hotel. We rented houses for them at the government’s expense to house them and their families. We continued to give them material support and financial support until I stopped being minister of the interior in 2008, but as a minister of local government. And I continued providing this kind of assistance to our Jewish brothers. I attended their weddings. There was a wedding for their children; I attended that when I was deputy prime minister and minister of local government.

This is the thought that dominates the Houthi group. This is the thought that the more capabilities it has, the more military capabilities it has, the more it extends. First, they expel the Jews and destroy their homes in Saada. Today, they are sending their missiles to Israel. This is their doctrine. It is nothing new for them. We were not at all surprised.

ANDERSON: OK. Thank you.

That’s, again, useful background to all of the way we tend to think about it here. And we do tend to think that the Houthis and Hezbollah and Hamas are in a sort of alliance across the region. Do you agree that that’s the case? And insofar as it is the case, how does it operate? How do they interact with each other? One could argue, I suppose, that it all leads back through Tehran. Is that true, or is—or are there independent relationships, or are we imagining all of that?

AL-ALIMI: I believe that all evidence and information confirm that there is an operations room run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This operations room runs the scene in the region. It divides roles among those militias in accordance with the political vision of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard and the National Security Council of Iran.

This has been public knowledge. There is an axis called the Resistance Axis. There is another axis in the Arab region, which is the Axis of Development, Peace, Security, Stability. We support the Palestinian people. We support the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital East Jerusalem. Everybody agrees to the Arab peace initiative for the establishment of the Palestinian state side by side with the state of Israel, and they can live in peace, security, and stability. But there are two projects, two visions in the region. We are part of the project of peace, coexistence, stability, freedom, human rights. This is our axis of which we are a part. We are not part of the axis of destruction.

I believe this is a doctrine that deepens this political concept. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, for instance, believes that he is the imam, that he is above human beings, that he is sent by God. When we ask Houthis—and this might be a little bit outside the question—I want to ask them: What is your political project? What is that project? There is nothing. They just want to be above the state.

What happens in Lebanon today is, of course, of regret for us. There are victims—you know, women, children, elderly. The situation in south Lebanon is very similar to the situation in Gaza today. This is what happens when militias take the lead in the political and military scene in any country. This is the result. I don’t know, where is the Lebanese Army? Where is the Lebanese state? It’s been more than one-a-half-years that the Lebanese have not been able to elect a president because Hezbollah wanted to impose the president it wishes to see. Militias, when they become the dominant force, this is the result that comes about in Yemen, in Lebanon.

I believe there might be a specificity here. The question is very complex. Is there a specificity? In Yemen, today, September 26, is a day that is celebrated by Yemenis everywhere. This is the day of the declaration of the Republic of Yemen in 1962 and when the Imamis was eliminated. This thought today is a mixture of the heritage of the Imami era and the thought of Khomeini, but the end result is the same.

ANDERSON: I told you he’s a historian and social scientist and so forth, so this is very interesting.

But I want to get back to some international politics. I have one-and-a-half questions, I think, before we open it to everyone else. The U.S. conducted airstrikes against multiple Houthi targets in Yemen after the attacks. Do you support those? And if so, why are some of your other allies, including Saudi Arabia, not involved?

AL-ALIMI: It is no secret that I’m going to say now. The United States wanted us to be a part of that coalition. We said we agree to be part of that coalition, but we have needs and demands.

The first, that the liberated area in Aden, Marib, Taiz, Hadramaut, Abyan, and Lahij, and many other places, we will face missile attacks and drone attacks that the Houthis have accumulated during the truce and they received from Iran and Hezbollah. We have no air defense; how are we going to defend our airports and our facilities, even our personal homes? In order to get into that partnership, it must be a strategic partnership based on clear bases from a defense point of view. Many are asking us, what do you want the United States to do? We say we want a strategic partnership with the United States in order to promote and strengthen security and stability and to restore the Yemeni state. This threat will not be eliminated without the restoration of the Yemeni state or else it will continue.

There is cooperation with the United States in combating terrorism. There are understandings. We are continuing with those understandings. We work on their basis on both sides, and we would like to develop those understandings because we believe that what the Houthis are doing is an act of terrorism by any standard. That’s why they were categorized by many states as a terrorist group. We continue to call on the U.S. and other states to categorize this group as a terrorist group.

In Saudi Arabia—this question is supposed to be answered by them. I cannot answer it on their behalf. But I believe that the strengthening of confidence between international regional parties and the legitimate government to face these terrorist groups—al-Qaida and ISIS and others—I think this is a very urgent matter. Very urgent.

Therefore, we look towards this strategic partnership with regional allies—Saudi Arabia, the UAE in particular, and the international community, namely the United States and the U.K. and the European Union—because they have their own independent coalition in both the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

At the same time, we would like to receive more support. We need a role of the United States in two directions. The first one is to strengthen the political consensus within the Leadership Council. This is a very important role. The United States has started playing that role through the democratic institution in Aden and it held many meetings for many Yemeni political factions.

All those Yemeni components are against the Houthis. The Houthis are in a corner on their own. They don’t want a partnership with anybody else. That’s why they—(inaudible)—popular conference in Sanaa, then turned their back on them and killed dozens of their leaders.

Therefore, we want to strengthen this political consensus in that Leadership Council. As chair of that council I have a number of projects related to this issue. We have a strategic vision for deterrence that is put before the council. We also have a declaration of principles that is before the Leadership Council and in coordination with our brothers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We also have a plan for economic recovery in which the World Bank has participated. The World Bank has participated in the elaboration of that plan, which is a plan of economic recovery.

These are three points, the strategy of complete deterrence of these militias and other terrorist organizations, because they are working with ISIS and they are working with al-Shabaab in Somalia—that terrorist group in Somalia, which is a part of ISIS. Al-Qaida.

There is an agreement between the United States and the Somali government. We also need such an agreement. We need such—a similar agreement because the Strait of Bab al-Mandab where is it being threatened from? Not from Mogadishu. It’s from Yemen. Aden today might be more important than Mogadishu and to ensure the safety of Bab al-Mandab, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden concerning the importance of our region for the Western world today. Bab al-Mandab is more important than India-Pacific.

When some factories stopped work in Europe, they started asking: What is happening? Who are the Houthis? They went back to their records, the records in which we spoke. We used to meet with friends in the U.S., in the EU, and all the regions, and put forward these threats.

There is a threat to the Red Sea. Iran has invested a lot of effort at this early stage to reach that point. We have been saying that. Ten years ago—more than ten years ago—some of the scholars here have dealt with these potential threats by the Houthis but today the world has opened its eyes and has been shocked by that. But we—that was not a surprise for us at all.

ANDERSON: All right. Thank you.

I was going to ask you some questions about what you want the United States and the international community to do but I think you’ve already opened that, and so it’s time to let the audience have an opportunity to pose some questions and there appear to be some eager people to do so.

I believe you probably need to wait for a microphone for the translator. So, sir, right here.

Q: Thank you. Thank you. Earl Carr representing CJPA Global Advisors. Thank you for a wonderful discussion.

Does the Yemen government take some blame and/or responsibility for not providing enough resources to protect the Houthis from attacking and seizing oil facilities and resources—as you said, about 70 percent?

Thank you.

AL-ALIMI: Thank you. That’s a very important question.

Unfortunately, since the Presidential Council was formed and we went back to Aden, before that there was an internal conflict within the legal government and there were armed clashes between the parties.

Unfortunately, I say—and it’s a long story, and this led the legitimate government to face this conflict there. There were armed conflicts in Shabwah, Aden, and other places, and the solution for this was to form this Presidential Council after the Riyadh consultations. All the political powers met and agreed with our Saudi and Emirati brothers to form that council of all political components so we can overcome the conflict that trained them.

Unfortunately, when we came back to Aden we didn’t find any air defenses—not in Aden, not the oil installations. There were some defense—area defense in 2015-2016, the early parts of the war, but these were withdrawn by our brothers in the alliance and we told them about this. We suggested this to them, to our friends as well, not just our brothers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

So we suggested it to the U.S. and the answer was, we don’t want to see an escalation of the conflict. We don’t want to see a confrontation. We want to see peace. We are not warmongers. Peace should be the way to restore the state.

But we don’t really have any ability—financial ability. Most of the money that we have are for basic needs. And we were in conflict with the government. We told the government—we took a decision by the Presidential Council we want to allocate some of these monies to buy some air defenses.

The government came and said, you’re going to buy the weapons but this is at the expense of the basic needs. So we can’t pay salaries, we can’t pay health needs, no social security. So we get priority, of course, for the basic needs of people. This may not be the right decision, some may say or think, but the pressures that we were under in the last two years for peace and to stop the war, not to buy weapons—by all our allies and friends—that represented severe pressures. And we know there are decisions and resolutions that imposed a ban on the weapons.

They talked about the coast guard when they talk about Lebanon, but we have given just to the EU, to our friends in the United States, to support the coast guard because we are on five islands—five islands in the Red Sea, the coast guard. So if these islands were taken by the Houthi, that would be really a problem in the Red Sea. They would not need even drones or missiles. Kalashnikovs would stop navigation. We are there. We asked our friends. We asked our partners to support the coast guard. And we are still waiting, unfortunately.

ANDERSON: Sir, right here.

Q: Excuse me. I’ll ask my question in Arabic, because I’m Yemeni. I’m Ahmed, if I may—

ANDERSON: Tell us who you are first.

INTERPRETER: I’ll ask my question.

Q: I’m Ahmed Baider. I’m in television, PBS NewsHour, Al-Abriqui (ph).

(Continues through interpreter.) We’ve heard so many initiatives for peace in Yemen. Initiatives by the U.N., the Saudis, by the Houthi. But we have not heard an initiative from the government, despite the fact that the government is always welcoming peace. You have a vote, the traditional means of solving conflict in Yemen.

ANDERSON: We need a question.

Q: Question. Question. Question. Do you have an initiative, as a man of this stage, to help solve the conflicts in Yemen? Thank you.

AL-ALIMI: Actually, all the initiatives that were tabled happened through a dialog with the government. It wasn’t a separate issue. For instance, the roadmap that was adopted by Saudi Arabia and helped by the (Emiratis ?), we discussed this for months because, between the Saudi side and the U.N. and our side, we had amendments, we had suggestions, we had proposals. So these initiatives were not separate from what the government does. The other thing, which is also very important, we are convinced that the Houthis are not interested in peace because they have basically ignored all the agreements that we signed.

Let’s go back to 2006 and 2007, the Qatari initiative and the six points. It was signed in Qatar, you remember, and the Houthi never implemented any of it. The dialog—the dialog conference in Yemen, they were—they had thirty-six representatives, the Houthis, and the committee to prepare for the Constitution. They just control the state and ignored the dialog after they control Sanaa. We said that we don’t want a civil war. That will not take us anywhere. So we signed the Peace and Partnership Initiative. And the political powers wanted—Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, the former president, wanted to avoid the war. And we signed that accord. And then they ignored it.

They put the president under a blockade. They besieged the government and placed them other house arrest. And talks in Geneva, Berlin, Kuwait, and Stockholm that was imposed on us. And the legal government was three kilometers from the Hodeidah Port. And they said, oh, this would be a humanitarian disaster. The government responded positively. We signed this. And but they ignored the Stockholm, of course, as well.

So we have a desire for peace. And we think this is good for everyone. And it’s good for the Yemenis. Not war. Thank you.

ANDERSON: Sure. Right here.

Q: Brief intervention. Joseph Farsakh, from the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, who unfortunately couldn’t be with us today, but wanted to extend his welcome to the president, to the vice president, Ambassador Hadhrami, Adanis (ph), the entire delegation, had the pleasure of meeting twice and look forward to meeting later this week again. Everybody in this room has Yemen in their heart in some way, shape, or form. So thank you to CFR for putting this together.

Our partnership is extraordinarily valuable, Mr. President. And we continue to strive for peace in Yemen, and we look forward to continuing with this partnership. Thank you.

ANDERSON: Did you hear anything that surprised you? (Laughter.)

Q: I may or may not comment on that.

ANDERSON: OK.

Q: An excellent session.

ANDERSON: OK. In the back, or middle?

Q: Hi. I’m Alexandra Starr with International Crisis Group. Thank you for a very interesting discussion.

You spoke about security in the Red Sea and mentioned these coast guard outposts. I was wondering if you could talk about what plan you have for securing that body of water, because you more or less mentioned that if those are taken over it could be very dangerous. And then, you know, if the Houthis push forward with another counterattack, how can the PLC respond given that Saudis and other allies don’t seem so keen to, you know, bolster a PLC response or, basically, fight the Houthis again.

Al-ALIMI: Thank you very much. For us, the coast guard is extremely important. Extremely important also for the United States. The establishment of that unit in 2003 was an American job by American experts. And that expert laid down the plan for coast guard operations. And we’re still following that plan until this very moment. So it’s extremely important to provide support for the Coast Guard. And we’re hoping to get that support from our brothers and partners as well. We are making every effort to develop this with our own indigenous capacity. They are running their patrols in coordination with the forces that are present in the Gulf of Aden and in the Red Sea.

Our friends—(inaudible)—alliance for prosperity, and our brothers from Saudi Arabia, because they also are present in deep water because there’s a common part of the border on the Red Sea between us and the Saudis. And we have this coordination. As for battles or actual military confrontation, in our military formations we are extremely ready for any attacks. The Houthi tried to control Marib, and the—Marib and the oil sources there, and they lost. They declared that they lost 15,000 Houthi in the attacks of ’21 and ’22, to try and take over Marib. They couldn’t. They couldn’t take it over. The army and the popular resistance stood their ground. Now they went after Taiz, Marib, Al Bayda, the west coast of Taiz.

These attacks continue, but they have been unable to make any progress or penetrate any of the fronts because the resistance is very strong. And there’s a rejection by the people, not necessarily in the areas that the government controlled but even the areas under the militias. There were thousands of arrests of men, women to prevent them from celebrating the 26^th of September, which is the National Day of the New Republic. The Yemenis here know about this. There are mass arrests and state of emergency because there is a popular rejection of that group. And I believe that this rejection rejects the Houthis in the area that they—areas that they control as well.

ANDERSON: Right here in the middle on the aisle.

Q: Hi. I’m Neval (ph). I’m a staff member at CFR. Thank you so much for your presence today.

There has been a complete blockade of Yemen by your allies, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, since 2015, which has prevented any humanitarian aid from entering Yemen and has caused millions of people to die of starvation. Could you please share your thoughts on that?

AL-ALIMI: The regrettable thing is we opened the Hodeidah Port, and this was initiated by our brothers from Saudi Arabia. Everything went in, but we still have a crisis—a humanitarian crisis. There’s an economic publication of the team of the presidency where they refer to the prices of basic commodities—oil, diesel, sugar, flour, and oil, and rice, I think. This is sixth one. So we get a weekly publication for the council. That bulletin tells us that the prices in Sanaa are much more and higher than those in Aden. So we asked, the port is open, and all the material are coming through Hodeidah. All the merchants, or the traders were in Sanaa. So they import them—they import the material. And then they redistribute them to the other governments, even the ones under the government—under control of the government.

And then we found out that these bribes, almost extortion by the Houthi, these lead to more human suffering and more rising crises. Therefore, the link that the increasing poverty and hunger in the areas under the Houthi control are the practices and extortion of traders and citizens, the birth of the prophet feast, which was celebrated a week ago, and they impose on every single house that they have to contribute to that celebration. And whoever returns that letter without giving money ends up in jail. Many Yemenis who are here are aware of this. We have our families there in these areas. Whoever does not pay—and so they consider this an occasion for collecting money from people by force.

They go to schools. A child has fifty rials so that they can buy their breakfast from the buffet of the school, the school canteen. And the supervisor walks into the classroom, and each pupil would give the fifty rials to contribute. And then they would skip breakfast. What kind of blockade is this? What kind of siege will be done? The siege is an internal siege by the militias of the citizens, of the women, children. Prisons are full of women. You know about Ansoura Hamedi (ph), and Semiha al-Khouleni (ph), and the one who was sentenced to death. And Fatima Al-Arwali was sentenced to death If women send a message through social media, they can receive a death sentence in the areas under the control of the militias. So we are under siege since these militias took up arms against the state and imposed the siege on all Yemenis. Thank you.

ANDERSON: I’m afraid we’re coming to the end of our session. The Council is very strict on ending on time. This is, in fact, as far as we can tell from the records of the Council, the first time the president of Yemen has spoken here. Obviously, we hope it’s not the last time. So let me just ask you if you have any final words between now and when the president of Yemen comes back. (Laughter.)

AL-ALIMI: First, let me say that I’m very happy to be part of that meeting. And I believe that there are certain reports and narratives with the Western world that did not really reflect what these militias do in their practices. People used to look at the conflicts in Yemen differently. But I believe that we are now seeing things for what they are, whether at the regional or international level. And we believe that this change is the beginning of saving Yemen, saving Yemen from these militias, restoring the state. And Yemen will go back to its mission to provide services, development, stability for all its citizens.

Once the security and stability, as part of the world, takes part actively in the efforts of the international community to achieve sustainable development, that we all dream of achieving in the state. I believe that these old stories that are now completely debunked, and it was unmasked. Unfortunately, some of the liberals—and we respect, of course—but the facts, of course, were pretty mixed. Now everything is clear before the whole world, before the scholars, before everybody else. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks to everybody. (Applause.)

ANDERSON: Thank you, Mr. President.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.