The 15-nation UN council “should speak in a principled manner for ending any violence … in the Yemen crisis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
The top Russia diplomat made a trip to Dushanbe on Thursday to attend a meeting of the Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Lavrov added that a draft resolution on the crisis in Yemen had been submitted to the Security Council. The UN body is now working to prepare the text of a joint resolution on the situation in Yemen.
“Unfortunately, the resolution was submitted after the dramatic events in Yemen took place” and the Al Saud regime unleashed its aerial attacks against the Arabian Peninsula state, Lavrov said.
Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for nine days now to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. According to a report recently released by the United Nations, two weeks of Saudi-led aggression against Yemen has killed at least 519 people, hundreds of women and children among them. Another 1,700 people have also been wounded over the past two weeks.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement.
Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
Five Persian Gulf States -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait -- and Egypt that are also assisted by Israel and backed by the US declared war on Yemen in a joint statement issued March 26.
US President Barack Obama authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to the military operations, National Security Council Spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said late on March 25.
She added that while US forces were not taking direct military action in Yemen, Washington was establishing a Joint Planning Cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate US military and intelligence support.
