US State Department starts to revisit Trump terrorist designation of Yemen’s Ansarullah
A spokesperson at the US State Department says Washington has started a review of a decision by the administration of former US President Donald Trump to designate Yemen’s popular Ansarullah movement as a foreign terrorist organization.
“As noted by Secretary-Designate [Anthony] Blinken, the State Department has initiated a review of Ansarullah’s terrorist designations,” the spokesperson said on Friday.
“We will not publicly discuss or comment on internal deliberations regarding that review; however, with the humanitarian crisis in Yemen we are working as fast as we can to conduct the review and make a determination,” the spokesperson added.
Trump’s administration announced the designation of popular Ansarullah movement as a ‘terrorist group’ on January 11, nine days before new US President Joe Biden took office on Wednesday.
The leader of Yemen's Ansarullah movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has condemned Israel as a menace to the entire Muslim world as well as regional and global peace and security.
The top Saudi diplomat told a news conference at the time that political negotiations between representatives of the Saudi-backed government of Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and Ansarullah movement would resume as part of the initiative.
The spokesman for Yemen’s Ansarullah movement has rejected the United States claim of aiding the Yemeni people, saying Washington and its allies would deprive Yemenis of oxygen if they could.
Yemen's Ansarullah movement says the country would positively receive any attempt to end the Saudi-led war only after the coalition attacking Yemen stops its aggression and blockade against the impoverished Arab country.
Yemen's Ansarullah movement has dismissed as provocative a call by the regime of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi for war in the port city of Hudaydah, saying the regime has repeatedly violated the 2018 Stockholm Agreement brokered by the UN to bring peace to the war-torn country.
