Houthis agree to allow UN to offload decaying oil tanker in Red Sea

Houthis agree to allow UN to offload decaying oil tanker in Red Sea

AL-MUKALLA: The Iran-backed Houthis have agreed to allow the UN to empty the rusting Safer oil tanker in the Red Sea which threatened to cause a major catastrophic disaster, a leader from the terrorist group said. After years of reluctance and unfulfilled promises, Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, head of the Houthi movement’s supreme revolutionary committee, said on Saturday that they signed an agreement with the UN that would allow the international body to offload the floating tanker. “A memorandum of understanding has been signed with the United Nations for the Safer tanker,” the Houthi leader said on Twitter. In New York, Farhan Haq, a deputy spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told Arab News that the UN’s official resident in Yemen, David Gressly, is currently discussing the deal with the Houthis in Sanaa: “Discussions continue on the SAFER. David Gressley is in Sana’a right now, discussing the matter with the authorities there.” Anchoring with its cargo of over 1 million barrels of crude oil off Yemen’s western city of Hodeidah, the four-decades-old floating tanker has not undergone regular upkeep since early 2015 when the Houthis tightened their grip on the country’s western coasts, prompting international engineers to flee the country. The rust