Reducing Sana'a airport flights by half: Will the government implement its threat to cancel facilities for the front militia?

English - Thursday 13 July 2023 الساعة 04:22 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, exclusive:

The director of Sana'a International Airport, appointed by the Houthi militia, Khaled Al-Shayef, said that flights between Sana'a Airport and Amman Airport have been reduced by half.

Al-Shayef wrote a tweet on his Twitter account, Tuesday: "Programming Yemen Airways flights from the capital, Sana'a, to the Jordanian capital, for the month of August, with half the number of flights required to be implemented (three flights per week instead of six)."

And while the Houthi official indicated that this measure will restore suffering to those wishing to travel to Jordan and will double the difficulty of "obtaining reservations", no official comment has yet been issued by the first-line leaders of the militia authorities in Sana'a.

A few days ago, the legitimate government threatened through its information minister, Muammar al-Eryani, to cancel the facilities it agreed to grant to the front militia authorities, represented by flights between Sana'a and Amman airports, and opening the port of Hodeidah to commercial ships.

The government's threat came in light of the Houthi militia's continued ban on exporting oil from the liberated governorates and threatening to strike the export ports if the government resumed oil extraction and export.

In view of the intransigence of the Imami militia and its persistence in provocative escalation and the mobilization of its fighters to the fronts to resume the war, the UN envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, noted, in his briefing to the Security Council in the middle of this week, that the militia is pursuing hostile economic policies against the government.

Earlier last June, the United States, Britain and France threatened the Imam militia to take measures that would increase its isolation from the world if it continued its economic war and provocative escalation against the legitimate government.

The Civil Aviation Authority affiliated with the militia authority in Sana’a notified international organizations in late March of suspending all flights through Sana’a Airport from Saturday to Thursday, March 30, 2023, in response to the decision of the official Yemeni Airways company to stop cutting tickets for Sana’a-Amman-Sana’a, which is what The militia authorities considered it a "dangerous step" under the pretext of exacerbating the suffering of Yemenis wishing to travel abroad from their areas of control.

Since then, the body affiliated with the Imamate militia has rescheduled the flights of international organizations on one day of the week, Friday.

It is unclear whether the legitimate government, and then the two countries of the Arab coalition that support it, will proceed with measures beyond reducing flights through Sana’a airport, or will be content with that, especially with the Houthi militia continuing its provocative escalation, economically and militarily, and in light of its declared and unannounced preparations to resume the war. .

These developments come with indications of a return of tension to the Arab region, especially between the Arab Gulf states and Iran, after the latter announced its preparations for exploration in the Dorra field, which contains huge amounts of gas and oil in the submerged area on the maritime borders between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

And Iran, last week, resurfaced its claims of its right to a share of the Dorra field, after decades of calm in this file extending to the mid-sixties of the twentieth century.