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Al-Alimi Urges Pressure on Houthis, Blinken Describes Yemeni Leadership as Bold

Chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Dr. Rashad Al-Alimi at a meeting in Jeddah with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (Saba)
Chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Dr. Rashad Al-Alimi at a meeting in Jeddah with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (Saba)
    Jeddah, Aden - Abdulhadi Habtor and Ali Rabih
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Al-Alimi Urges Pressure on Houthis, Blinken Describes Yemeni Leadership as Bold

Chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Dr. Rashad Al-Alimi at a meeting in Jeddah with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (Saba)
Chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Dr. Rashad Al-Alimi at a meeting in Jeddah with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (Saba)

Chairman of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) Dr. Rashad Al-Alimi discussed the situation in Yemen with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a meeting in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Saturday.

After reviewing developments in Yemen and the costly war caused by Iran-backed Houthi militias, al-Alimi called for more pressure on the militias to implement the ongoing truce.

Al-Alimi stressed the PLC’s commitment to realizing a just and comprehensive peace, based on national, regional, and international references, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2216.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara A. Leaf, US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking, and Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak attended the meeting.

Al-Alimi called for an active US role to pressure the Houthi militias to implement the terms of the truce, according to a statement carried by Yemen's state news agency Saba.

“We found great appreciation from the US for the concessions made by the Yemeni government to make the truce succeed, despite the Houthis’ lack of commitment,” Mubarak told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“The US also underscored its support for the PLC and the reforms it is implementing,” he added.

“I met Yemeni PLC President al-Alimi in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to discuss extending the UN truce to ease Yemenis’ suffering,” tweeted Blinken.

“I welcome the Government’s bold leadership on the truce. We must see meaningful Houthi action to allow access to Taiz, Yemen,” added the State Secretary in the same tweet.

Blinken underlined his country's commitment to supporting Yemen's unity, sovereignty, and stability, and to encourage regional and international allies to provide more economic and humanitarian support to the PLC, the government, and the Yemeni people.

He also stressed that his country is committed to pressuring Houthi militias to fulfill their obligations under the armistice.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.