Iran rejects US claims of using flights to Yemen to transfer arms
Iran’s ambassador and deputy permanent representative to the UN has rejected what he described as “baseless” US allegations that Tehran is destabilising Yemen or using commercial flights to Sana’a to transfer military personnel or equipment.
In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the president of the UN Security Council, Gholamhossein Darzi strongly rejected allegations raised by the US representative and some other Security Council members during a meeting on Yemen on Thursday, Iran’s English-language Press TV reports.
Darzi said the claims were “without any supporting evidence”, particularly the US assertion that Iranian commercial flights to Sana’a were being used to transport military personnel or equipment in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
“The allegations are completely baseless and unsupported by any credible evidence,” Darzi said, accusing Washington of attempting to mislead the Security Council.
He described the allegations as a “hypocritical” effort by the United States to divert attention from its own actions in Yemen and across the region and evade responsibility for its destabilising conduct.
It was particularly “regrettable”, the envoy said, for a UN member state to level such accusations while itself having repeatedly resorted to “unlawful uses of force and acts of aggression with serious consequences for regional and international peace and security”.
Addressing Iranian flights to Sana’a, Darzi said they had been purely humanitarian in nature.
“The recent flights from Iran to Sana’a have been humanitarian in nature,” he said, stressing that the prolonged closure and severe restrictions imposed on Sana’a International Airport, along with the blockade, had inflicted devastating humanitarian consequences on the Yemeni population.
Darzi said portraying humanitarian assistance intended to alleviate these consequences as a destabilising activity was “factually false as well as morally and legally indefensible”.
The Iranian envoy also challenged Washington’s claim to be a defender of peace and stability in Yemen, saying the United States could not credibly assume such a role while seeking to avoid responsibility for the destruction inflicted on the Yemeni people.
“Yemenis have endured for nearly a decade the consequences of a devastating war,” Darzi said, pointing to the prolonged blockade and restrictions on vital civilian infrastructure that, he argued, had been made possible with US political and military support.
Darzi also criticised the United States for directly undermining the political process in Yemen.
“Washington’s military actions against Yemen in March 2025 violated the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and were contrary to the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions,” he said.
According to the Iranian diplomat, those actions also created further obstacles to the UN-facilitated political process aimed at resolving the conflict.
He further criticised Washington’s efforts to secure political support for Security Council Resolution 2722, adopted in 2024, followed by what he described as a selective and abusive interpretation of the resolution to justify military action against Yemen and its civilian infrastructure.
Such actions, Darzi said, had again violated Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, escalated regional tensions and weakened prospects for a political settlement.
“It is therefore highly significant that the same regime whose actions have repeatedly undermined peace, violated Yemen’s sovereignty and resorted to unlawful force in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law is now seeking to accuse Iran of destabilising Yemen,” he said.
Darzi described the US allegations as an attempt to “distort the facts” and shift responsibility away from those responsible for aggression and destabilisation.
“Iran will continue to support a peaceful, inclusive and comprehensive political process that is Yemeni-led and Yemeni-owned, under the auspices of the United Nations, as the only viable and sustainable way to resolve the conflict,” he said.
He also stressed that lasting peace in Yemen could not be achieved through military escalation, pressure or coercion, or by excluding relevant Yemeni parties from the political process.
Darzi called on the international community to engage “meaningfully, impartially and practically” with all relevant Yemeni parties while addressing the country’s humanitarian crisis and working to lift the blockade to create conditions for a sustainable political solution.
He also urged the Security Council to reject attempts by some members to use the body as an instrument for political objectives and instead “focus on the suffering of the Yemeni people and support a genuinely Yemeni-owned and Yemeni-led peace process.”