PNN – In a statement, the 12 member countries of the American maritime coalition, while acknowledging the refusal of ships to pass through the Red Sea, have asked Yemen’s Ansarullah forces to stop attacks on commercial ships.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, 12 member countries of the American maritime coalition have asked Yemeni Ansarullah forces to stop attacks on commercial ships while acknowledging the refusal of ships to pass through the Red Sea.
This statement was issued on Wednesday by the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and England.
It is stated in this statement: “We hereby emphasize the following points and warn the Houthis (Ansarullah) about carrying out more attacks.”
The member states of the coalition have described the attacks by the Yemeni forces in the Red Sea as “illegal, indescribable and highly destabilizing” and have claimed that there is no legal justification for the deliberate attacks on civilian ships.
Yemeni army attacks
Yemen’s Ansarullah, which currently controls a large part of the country, has announced since the start of Israel’s attacks in Gaza that it will attack ships owned by, under the flag of, or bound for Israel in the Red Sea. Despite this, Ansarullah has stated that the Red Sea is safe for other ships.
The attacks of the Yemeni army in the Red Sea started on November 19, and the Ansarullah movement announced that it will continue until the Israeli attacks in Gaza stop. The US government claims that since that day, 24 attacks on ships have taken place in the Red Sea.
The coalition countries have stated that nearly 15% of the world’s maritime trade, including 8% of the world’s wheat trade, 12% of the oil sea trade, and 8% of the liquefied natural gas trade in the world is done through the Red World.
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Admitting the failure of the coalition
America has formed a coalition to counter these attacks after the Yemeni National Army started attacking ships owned by or bound for Israel. Despite this, this coalition has so far not been successful in its stated goals.
The coalition countries have admitted in their statement that ships continue to divert from the Red Sea and use the “Cape of Good Hope” for maritime traffic.
This statement states: “International shipping companies continue to use Cape Omidnik to divert their ships, causing significant price increases and weeks of delivery delays, ultimately jeopardizing the movement of vital shipments of food, fuel and humanitarian aid around the world.”
Stopping the passage of shipping companies
Yesterday, the Danish shipping company Maersk announced that it will suspend the traffic of all its ships through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden until further notice.
The German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd announced on Wednesday that the company still diverted its ships from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa for security reasons.
Ambiguity in coalition goals
The American maritime alliance has faced doubts from the shipping industry since its inception. Reuters news agency reported, quoting sources in the shipping industry, that they do not know much about the new American maritime alliance. Shipping sources said at the same time that many ships still prefer not to cross the Red Sea or cancel their contracts.
Shipping industry sources say they have been given few practical details about the plan, and they don’t know whether Washington would intervene directly in the event of an armed conflict.
Not accompanying Saudi Arabia and the UAE
Another reason for the failure of the US coalition was the failure of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to join this coalition. When the United States of America announced the formation of a naval coalition under its leadership to protect ships in the Red Sea, the absence of the names of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which were the main members of the coalition fighting the Yemenis, surprised some experts.
This was despite the fact that Saudi Arabia has an army equipped with American weapons, started a war against Ansarullah about 9 years ago, and in addition depends on the Red Sea ports for 36% of its imports.
Some analysts describe the reason for Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to participate in this coalition as an attempt to avoid tension with Iran, as well as in line with the country’s plans to withdraw from the costly war in Yemen.
Two sources in the Persian Gulf familiar with the matter told Reuters last month that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were absent because they wanted to avoid escalating tensions with Iran or jeopardizing peace in Yemen.
Iyad al-Rifai, from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, said: “The occurrence of another war means moving from a political process to another military process, which will change the geopolitical map of the Middle East for a long time.”
In addition, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, due to their doubts about the long-term commitment of the United States to these two countries, have been trying to transform their regional politics for years by finding new partners.
In addition, the Saudis want to end their 9-year war in Yemen. According to Reuters, this war has now reached a deadlock, which has damaged the prestige of Saudi Arabia due to Yemen’s attacks on Saudi airports and energy bases, which has caused insecurity in the country.
These attacks have led to the destruction of Yemen’s infrastructure and the spread of poverty, unemployment and infectious diseases in this poor Arab country. Since the beginning of these attacks, tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians have been martyred and injured.
According to Reuters, peace in Yemen is also important to the UAE, although the country withdrew most of its forces from the war in 2020. The UAE still supports Yemeni groups, and Yemeni Ansarullah targeted Abu Dhabi with drone and missile attacks last year.
Withdrawal from the US alliance
Among other signs of the failure of the American naval alliance is the action of some countries to withdraw from this alliance. Reuters news agency wrote in a report on January 7th that while a week has passed since the launch of this coalition, many US allies do not want to be publicly associated with it.
Among other signs of the failure of the American naval alliance is the action of some countries to withdraw from this alliance. The Reuters news agency wrote a report that while a week has passed since the launch of this coalition, many US allies do not want to be associated with it publicly.
Two American allies in Europe, namely Italy and Spain, who initially announced that they would participate in this plan, later issued separate statements and tried to withdraw from their initial action.
The Pentagon initially claimed that the maritime task force was a coalition of 20 countries to ensure the free passage of $20 billion worth of goods through one of the most important shipping lanes in the Red Sea near Yemeni waters.
But later reports showed that almost half of these 20 countries have not stepped forward to confirm their participation in the aforementioned coalition and have not allowed the United States to do so either. Participation in this coalition covers a wide range from sending warships to sending only one agent as a representative.
The Pentagon has so far only announced the names of 12 countries as partner countries in this plan.
These 12 coalition countries have called for an end to the attacks of the Yemeni army forces in their statement on Wednesday night. “Let our message be clear: we demand an immediate end to these illegal attacks and the release of all seized vessels and their crews,” the statement said.