Riyadh (Debriefer) The Yemeni official government on Sunday welcomed the proposals, recently introduced by the United Nations on Safer supertanker, aimed at avoiding a potential environmental, economic disaster in the Red Sea.
The government supports proposal in order to abate the looming risk, the Yemeni foreign minister said at a meeting in Riyadh with the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen.
Yemen's government exerted efforts throughout the last years to find a practical solution for floating storage and offloading (FSO) Safer and put an end to the risk of leak, FM Ahmed Bin Mubarak told William David Grassley.
The current condition of the supertanker can afford no more delay by the "Houthi group that refused all the previous solutions proposed by the UN," the Riyadh-based Saba quoted the Yemeni FM as saying.
The UN official highly appreciated the Yemeni government's stance backing his efforts in this regard, according to Saba.
Late on Saturday, the UN announced new proposal for the Yemeni government and the Houthi group to solve the problem posed by the derelict FSO facility off the war-torn country.
Under the UN plan, 1.1 million of crude oil would be pumped out of Safer into another tanker.
In its first response to the proposal, the Houthi group accused the UN of persistently reneging a deal inked in November 2020 to assess and repair Safer.
The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is fully responsible for any leak or explosion of the FSO, and resultant environmental disaster, said the Houthi committee tasked with supervising the deal application.
The Yemeni State-owned tanker of Safer has not been repaired since 2014, with corrosion making the FSO facility at risk of looming explosion and, thus, the Red Sea at risk of the worst environment disaster, according to UN experts.
