The United States plans to designate Yemen’s Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization, three sources familiar with the matter said, a move that diplomats and aid groups worry could threaten peace talks and complicate efforts to combat the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
The decision to blacklist the Iran-aligned group, which could be announced as soon as Monday according to two of the sources, comes as the administration of President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take over from the Trump administration on 20th January.
The Trump administration has been piling on sanctions related to Iran in recent weeks, prompting some Biden allies and outside analysts to conclude that Trump aides are seeking to make it harder for the incoming administration to re-engage with Iran and rejoin an international nuclear agreement.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One person familiar with the matter said the Trump administration had worked out certain “allowances” to permit continued delivery of humanitarian supplies to Yemen and insisted that US sanctions rules in most cases leave room for aid organisations to work. The source declined to elaborate.
The designation has been the subject of weeks of fierce debate within the Trump administration and internal disagreements over how to carve out exceptions for aid shipments held up a final decision on the blacklisting, which has been in the works for weeks, multiple sources have said.
A Saudi Arabia-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015, backing government forces fighting the Houthi group. UN officials are trying to revive peace talks to end the war as the country’s suffering is also worsened by an economic and currency collapse and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read the article by Aziz El Yaakoubi, Jonathan Landay and Matt Spetalnick in Sight Magazine.