DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran on Thursday condemned as “baseless” a move by U.S. President Donald Trump to re-designate Yemen’s Tehran-linked Houthi movement as a “foreign terrorist organization (FTO)”.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the move, which will impose tougher economic penalties than the Biden administration has applied to the Houthis, is “a pretext for applying anti-human sanctions against the Yemeni people.”
“Such arbitrary and unfounded unilateral actions will further weaken the rule of law in international relations and threaten regional peace and stability,” Baghaei said, as reported by state media.
The Houthis, who control much of Yemen, have carried out more than 100 attacks on ships plying the Red Sea since November 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. They sank two ships, seized another and killed at least four sailors.
The attacks disrupted global transport, forcing companies to divert to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa for more than a year.
In 2021, Joe Biden dropped Trump’s terrorist designations to address humanitarian issues in Yemen. Biden last year designated the group as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organization, but backed away from applying the stricter FTO designation.
