The Yemeni official foreign minister on Thursday called for the floating storage and offloading (FSO) facility Safer to be separated from the proposals made by the UN special envoy for Yemen, and be dealt with urgently to avoid an environment catastrophe.
The Yemeni State-owned tanker of Safer has not been repaired since 2014, with corrosion making the FSO at risk of looming explosion along with 140,000 barrels of crude.
"The issue of Safer is now posing a real threat to the regional security and safety," FM Mohamed al-Hadhrami told his Kuwaiti counterpart on phone, accusing the Houthi group of obdurately denying the UN technical team access to the facility.
"Houthis should not be allowed to bargain with this environmental critical issue," the Yemeni FM added, according to the Riyadh-based Saba News Agency.
The UN envoy Martin Griffiths has proposed that the war be inclusively stopped, Sana'a airport reopened to international flights, salaries paid to civil servants in Houthi-held areas, and assurances be given that parties would go to talks for political solution.
The Yemeni UN-recognized government "has been always seeking for peace," Hadhrami said. "It's accepted the UN envoy's initiative, the economic and humanitarian arrangements in particular. But the Houthis have been dodging and rejecting all the efforts."
Kuwait supports the UN envoy's efforts aimed at a comprehensive solution for the Yemeni crisis, Saba quoted Dr. Ahmed Nasser al-Sabah as saying.
Last Monday, the Yemeni FM blamed the Houthis for the dangerous deterioration of Safer, warning that water had leaked into the FSO.
While warnings have been increasingly issued against a potential leakage, the Yemeni government and Houthis have traded blames for preventing repairs of the tanker.