Muscat: The war in Yemen is one of the Arab world’s easier crises to solve because it is one that can be solved by Yemenis themselves, Oman’s foreign minister has said, adding that he is expecting the war to come to an end soon.
Yousuf Bin Alawi Bin Abdullah, Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs, said in an interview broadcast on Monday night on RT (Russia Today), on the sideline of the 27th Arab League summit held in Mauritania, “Unlike the conflicts in Syria, Libya and, to an extent, Iraq, the solution to the [Yemen crisis] lies in the hands of Yemenis themselves. And they are able to fix this. Despite difficulties, I think the problems in the country can be overcome,” he said. “All sides want to get out of this crisis”.
He also said that Gulf states’ backing of the internationally-recognised government of Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi was not based on self-interest but due to the government’s legitimacy and the Gulf states’ keenness to support Yemeni people.
Bin Abdullah added that the fragility of the Arab world was result of its strategic location and subsequent foreign interests, which lead to the complexity of finding solutions for its problems.
Responding to a question about the ongoing conflicts in the region, he said Arab states have been unable to avoid being pulled into regional crises.
“At times of conflict, everyone sees himself as the righteous, the more powerful, the more capable, and he who can solve the [conflicts]. And it’s difficult to convince him [otherwise]. We’ve seen this. We saw it when Iraq invaded Kuwait and in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war,” he said.
“It has been said in a number of meetings that Arabs should not — and it is not acceptable for an Arab country to get mired in a particular war in a particular place and then come to the Arabs to say that you now have the responsibility to get me out of this crisis, because they did not consult other Arab countries. If you want to help then you must consult,” he said.
Bin Abdullah was appointed as the Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs in 1997 by Royal Decree and is known in Oman as “the engineer of the Oman’s Foreign policy”.
