TEHRAN – Iran on Monday reacted to Aran press reports accusing Iran of facilitating arms smuggling to Yemen, saying that these allegations are “baseless.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said such claims are “baseless and repetitive staging” on the part of the “invading coalition and their Western supporters,” according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry. 

The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news television claimed two days ago that a Yemeni group of smugglers has been implicated in smuggling arms from the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas to Yemen. 

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said the invading coalition and their Western backers must be held accountable for the crimes that they have committed for 7 years in Yemen. Kanaani said those crimes have left innocents dead, destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and unleashed the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the century.

He maintained that framing the Islamic Republic of Iran is only aimed at distracting the public opinion of regional and world countries from the realities of the Yemen crisis.

The ministry spokesman added that Iran’s support for the Yemeni people was political from the very beginning of the crisis and that Iran has always pushed for peace in Yemen and also the UN’s efforts to peacefully end this devastating war and to keep the truce in Yemen.

He underlined that the continuation of hostile policies and repetition of threadbare scenarios are at odds with their claim that they want the ceasefire hold and will not deliver any new outcome for the aggressors.