(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Secretary of State John Kerry, in a conference call with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers, commended the work of the coalition taking military action against the Houthis in Yemen, and noted U.S. support for those efforts, including intelligence sharing, targeting assistance and advisory and logistical support, the State Department announced on Thursday.
The GCC ministers all expressed their support for political negotiations as the best way to resolve the crisis, but they also noted that it is the Houthis who have instead waged a military campaign, "and they all agreed to stay in close contact going forward," said State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke during a briefing. In a separate briefing with reporters traveling with President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One en route to Birmingham, Alabama, on Thursday, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz reconfirmed that the U.S. was offering logistical and intelligence support in the Saudi-led Yemen military action.
"We are fully aware and supportive of the GCC decision to take action," Schultz said.
Schultz would not rule in or out further US action, and would not say when Obama learned about the Saudi operation. General Lloyd Austin, the head of US Central Command, in testimony on Thursday before a Senate committee, said he learned of the Saudi bombing in Yemen only shortly before it began.
Rathke said there is no purely military solution to the situation in Yemen, "and we, along with the GCC ministers whom the secretary spoke to today, support political negotiations as the best way to resolve the crisis. However, we also understand the Saudis' concerns, especially given the Houthis' failure to engage meaningfully in the political dialogue process. And so in that regard, we understand, and we support the action that they have taken." This is a Saudi-led and Saudi-organized coalition, so questions about the reasoning behind the particular timing on their side should be directed to them, Rathke said. "But we have certainly been in discussions with our Saudi partners over recent days, we are well aware of their concerns," he added. "And so when they reached the point that they decided to take this action, in our consultations with them, we decided to be supportive in the ways that we have outlined, through some logistical and intelligence support and so forth." U.S. officials urge the Houthis to halt destabilizing military actions, Rathke said.
"We have spoken out in favor of a political dialogue process," he said. The United States is not taking sides against a Shia faction or Sunni faction in Yemen, but is "trying to promote a dialogue process in which the views of all Yemenis can be taken into account, and it is the Houthis who have refused to engage in that dialogue," he said.
U.S. officials are aware that the government of Sudan has announced that it is taking part in the actions organized by the Saudis, Rathke noted.
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