Baku, Azerbaijan, March 31
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran has sent a new shipment of humanitarian aids to Yemeni Shiites on March 31.
An Iranian plane carrying the fifth aid cargo left Tehran’s International Mehr Abad air port to Sanaa early morning.
The cargo includes two metric tons of foods as well as 19 metric tons of medicines, Nasser Charkhsaz, a senior official with the Islamic Republic Red Crescent Society said, Iran’s state IRINN TV reported.
Iran has already sent four aid cargo shipments including 50 metric tons of medical equipments, drugs and food to Yemen, Charkhsaz said.
The first Iranian flight landed in Sanaa on March 1, a day after officials from the Shia-controlled city signed an aviation agreement with Tehran.
The Ansarullah group, whose power base is in the main Shiite northern highlands, overran Sanaa unopposed last September.
Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi managed to escape Sanaa and house arrest at the hands of the rebels on Feb. 21. Hadi has established a base in the southern city of Aden.
An international military operation kicked off on March 26 in Yemen against Ansarullah group, with involvement of the armed forces of a number of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia.
Earlier in March, a delegation from Yemen headed by Saleh al-Samad, head of Ansarullah movement’s political council, who was accompanied by officials from different Yemeni ministries, as well as economic experts, visited Tehran and discussed mutual cooperation with senior Iranian officials.
Last December, Deputy Commander of Iran’s IRGC, Hussein Salami said the balance of power in the region is changed in Iran’s favor.
Salami said that the Yemeni Ansarullah group moves in accordance with the Islamic Revolution (1979) within Iran’s geopolitical space. In his similar statements, Iran’s former foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati said mid-December that the Islamic Republic’s current influence spreads from Yemen to Lebanon.
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