Subsequent to the brief sent out on Wednesday, December 20 on the joint conference, which took place in Riyadh on addressing the humanitarian situation in Yemen; please find below, as a supplemental reference, the full transcript of Ambassador Mohammed Al Jabir, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Yemen, which explicitly distills his comments.

Peace be upon you all and good evening. I welcome you all, those who are with us tonight, and others who are watching us on TV.  Everyone knows that the Yemeni people are going through dire humanitarian and economic conditions. International reports indicate that more than a third of the Yemeni people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

This is the consequence of what the Iranian backed Houthi militias have done right after the Comprehensive National Dialogue ended in 2014.  They destroyed the Yemeni State’s institutions and took over the Yemeni people’s properties by seizing the assets of the Central Bank and transforming the financial and economic system in order to meet their own war efforts to kill, starve and pauperize the Yemeni people. In addition, they have refused to consider all efforts to reach a political solution. The latest one was what the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, has proposed about Hodeidah Port. The Iranian-backed Houthi militia, however, continue to kill, intimidate and terrorize the Yemeni people, they are still attacking the Kingdom’s territory and threatening to undermine security and stability of the region and the sea lanes.

The Iranian regime is backing the Houthi militia in their attacks against the Yemeni people and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This regime has provided the Yemeni people with death only by supporting, funding and providing those militias with quality weapons, ammunitions and ballistic missiles, which is considered a clear violation of UN Security Council Res. 2216 and 2231.

Iran continues to transplant elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and its affiliate – Hezbollah, which is considered as a terrorist organization - into Yemen, in order to:

• train these militias in special training camps
• provide them with the necessary techniques and experts to handle these weapons and learn to assemble  ballistic missiles, and then launch them into the Kingdom’s populated cities
• prolong the war
• disrupt the political process
• kill the Yemeni people
• undermine the security and stability of Yemen, other countries in the region, the sea lanes and international peace and security.

Since 2015, the Kingdom has provided the Yemeni people with more than 8 billion USD in humanitarian and development assistance. The Kingdom will continue to support our brothers in Yemen in confronting hunger and poverty, which have been caused by the Iranian backed Houthi militia. These militia have deliberately caused death through aggressive acts against Yemeni people and Saudi Arabia.

Accordingly, we are, with respect to the continuation of the Kingdom's keenness to support Yemeni people, in the process of finalizing the comprehensive humanitarian operations plan, which includes more than 11 humanitarian initiatives, in addition to the efforts of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid & Relief Center.

The comprehensive humanitarian operations aim to address the humanitarian situation in Yemen through delivering comprehensive humanitarian aid and commercial shipments of food, petroleum products and other commercial shipments to all Yemenis and to all of Yemen’s regions in such a way that meets the necessary needs of providing a decent livelihood for our brothers in Yemen.  The size of this operation is greater than what was done in 2017, in terms of addressing the Yemeni humanitarian situation in a comprehensive, continuous and ceaseless way.

The coalition announced today that the Port of Hodeidah would remain open for humanitarian and relief goods as well as allowing the entry of all commercial and fuel shipment for 30 days to support the implementation of the UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed proposals regarding the Port of Hodeidah.

In addition, four World Food Program cranes will be allowed to enter the Port of Hodeidah to meet the current challenges of the humanitarian situation in Yemen.

The comprehensive humanitarian operations plan also includes raising the capacity of Yemen's ports and the use of border crossings with Saudi Arabia, and utilize the Port of Jizan if necessary, to ensure that humanitarian aid and commercial shipments reach beneficiaries inside the Yemeni territories and all of the Yemeni governorates.

We have coordinated with the coalition to provide safe corridors to deliver aid and commercial shipments to all of Yemen’s regions. These steps are aimed to ensure the flexibility of the comprehensive humanitarian operations in order to achieve the objective of delivering the humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen in light of the continuous intransigence and rejection of these militias to all solutions put forward by the United Nations.

We are currently coordinating with the concerned parties in the legitimate Yemeni government to hold an urgent meeting with the UN along with humanitarian organizations to discuss all of the details of the humanitarian aid and the implementation mechanisms of the plan as well as defining the roles of the UN and humanitarian organizations in it to implement it immediately. During which, we will continue our discussion with the UN on the required contributions to alleviate the suffering of the people of Yemen. These steps are being taken at a time when our country, cities, and citizens are being attacked by Iranian-backed Houthi militias’ ballistic missiles.

In this comprehensive humanitarian operation, we, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, are pursuing to end the injustice and inequity of these Iranian-backed militias against our brothers, the Yemeni people.

At the same time, we assure that we will not allow the militias to control and plunder the humanitarian aid and commercial shipments and use them to attack the Yemeni people.

This will be a conference to clarify the features of the plan and then we will hold a detailed conference after we end our discussions with the United Nations and regional and international humanitarian organizations in the coming days.