Riyadh/Aden — Yemen’s Foreign Minister Abdulmalik Al-Mekhlafi reiterated that Iran is threatening stability and spreading chaos in the entire region.

During his meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield in Riyadh, Mekhlafi said Tehran seeks to replace the state with sects and armies with militias so as to sow chaos.

The Yemeni government announced on Saturday that it had seized an Iranian ship carrying 19 sailors off the coast of the Socotra archipelago, east of the country.

“The Iranian ship was seized on the coast of Hadibu, the capital of the Socotra archipelago between the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea,” Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid Bin Daghr said on his Twitter account.

He explained that “the ship was caught by fishermen on the island of Abdul Kuri, one of the islands of Socotra archipelago”.

According to Saba News Agency, Yemen’s Council of Ministers held a meeting chaired by Bin Daghr in the city of Aden where the seizure of the ship and the investigation into its cargo and source of supply were discussed.

The news coincided with renewed reports that Iran was transferring weapons to its Houthi militia allies across the Yemeni coasts, and the announcement by the US administration of the government’s support to meet these challenges. — Agencies