Yemen: Military Intervention

(asked on 25th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 24 June 2019 to Question 266880 on Yemen: Military Intervention and with reference to the news article entitled, The Saudis couldn’t do it without us: the UK’s true role in Yemen’s deadly war, published by The Guardian on 18 June 2019 in which a senior UK diplomatic source stated that the UK was a party to the conflict in Yemen, for what reason the Answer stated that the UK is not part of the coalition operating in Yemen but did not state whether the UK is a party to the conflict.


Answered by
Andrew Murrison Portrait
Andrew Murrison
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 1st July 2019

As stated in my answer of 24 June (PQ 266880), the UK is not part of the Saudi-led Coalition operating in Yemen. The UK does supports Saudi Arabia’s efforts to protect its national security against critical threats, such as the ballistic missiles and drones fired by the Houthis into civilian areas in Saudi Arabia. Because of this, we decided to provide information, advice and assistance to Saudi Arabia in responding to this threat. This assistance is part of our ongoing defence relationship with Saudi Arabia. This does not mean that the UK has a role in setting Coalition policy and our assistance is clearly limited to addressing this specific threat. We cannot comment further for operational security reasons except to say that all UK military personnel in Saudi Arabia remain under UK command and control.

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