ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday strongly condemned a recent Houthi attack targeting the Riyadh corporate offices of Saudi oil giant Aramco.
Both countries denounced the assault as a flagrant violation of Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty and reaffirmed their support for all measures taken to safeguard the kingdom’s security and territorial integrity.
A day earlier, an Aramco building in Riyadh was targeted in an ‘attempted attack’, the Saudi energy ministrysaid, which damaged the skyscraper.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack.
In its statement, Pakistan’s Foreign Office stressed that the targeting of civilian infrastructure demonstrated a ‘reckless [dis]regard for human life and regional security’ and demanded that the Houthis cease all attacks against Saudi Arabia ‘immediately and unconditionally’.
‘Fortunately, no casualties were reported,’ the FO said, commending the ‘vigilance and swift response’ displayed by Saudi authorities in ‘confronting this unjustifiable and unprovoked aggression’.
Expressing solidarity with SaudiArabia, the statement added that Pakistan stood resolutely with the kingdom’s leadership and reaffirmed its full support for all measures necessary to safeguard its security, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It added that Saudi Arabia’s security was of ‘paramount importance’ to Pakistan.
‘Our commitment to the safety and well-being of our Saudi brothers and sisters remains steadfast,’ the statement concluded.
Similarly, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the attack constituted a flagrant violation of Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty and a threat to its security and stability. The ministry reaffirmed the UAE’s full solidarity with the kingdom and its support for all measures aimed at safeguarding its security and stability.
Pakistan has condemned Houthi attacks multiple times, terming them a grave violation of the kingdom’s sovereignty.
Earlier on Monday, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence authorities sent a text message to residents of Riyadh briefly warning of an aerial threat before lifting the alert minutes later, saying the danger had passed, Reuters reported.
Rising death toll in Sanaa Meanwhile, the Houthis announced on their television channel on Monday that the death toll from Saudi strikesnear Yemen’s Sanaa city had climbed to 44, including more than 20 children.
According to a statement from the Houthi health ministry broadcast by the group’s Almasirah TV channel, the air strike in the Alshariyah area of Bani Hushaysh, east of Sanaa, also left 40 people injured. It said 21 children and 10 women were among those killed.
‘Rescue teams are still searching for the missing,’ it added.
‘No Syrian troops in Yemen’ In a related development, Syria’s foreign minister insisted that his country had no troops deployed in Yemen and was not planning to send any, after Yemeni sources told AFP that Syrian soldiers were in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
‘There is no deployment of troops to Yemen nor is there aplan for such deployment in the near future,’ Asaad al-Shaibani said at a press conference with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi.
Multiple Yemeni officials told AFP last week that Syrian troops were already in the country, with potentially thousands to be deployed eventually.
Shaibani said that despite Damascus and Riyadh signing a defence cooperation pact this month, there was ‘no agreement with the legitimate government in Yemen for a deployment to Yemen’.
‘Any military plan abroad would be announced... and not done in secret,’ he added.
‘We need Saudi expertise to help build the capacity of Syrians and we would like there to be cooperation between us in the field of the defence industry, and on the academic level.