After Saudi leadership announced an end to the country's air campaign against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen Tuesday, Washington welcomed the ceasefire, and urged further steps toward peace talks among Yemen's warring factions, the AFP reported.
But as Riyadh hailed the campaign as a Sunni-led success to reinstate control to Yemen's internationally-recognized president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, fierce clashes were left uninterrupted in the strategic southern city of Aden, while rebels remained in firm control of the capital Sanaa.
Saudi's defense ministry said the campaign was ending after depleting Houthi weapons capacities with targeting strikes, which had "successfully remove threats to Saudi Arabia's security and that of neighboring countries."
Meanwhile, Hadi made a televised appearance from Riyadh, promising impending "victory" against the rebel group and vowing to return to Aden and Sanaa soon.
The airstrike coalition's leadership went on to stress that their campaign had instead entered a political phase in Yemen, but did not rule out the possibility of resuming airstrikes against the Houthis if necessary. However, during the new phase, the coalition will not lift air and navel restrictions on the war-torn country, where aid groups have said scores of civilians have been left intermittedly trapped and shut out of receiving outside aid because of such restrictions.
After weeks of boiling tension with Saudi over the military campaign, Shiite Iran welcomed the ceasefire, calling it a "step forward" for the war-torn country and urging furher talks. There was no immediate response from the Houthis themselves.
For Iran, who has been accused of supplying the Houthis with weapons, the ceasefire comes with warnings from Washington not to escalate Yemen's situation further.
US President Barack Obama said Tuesday Washington "very direct messages" to Tehran not to send any weapons to the rebels which could be used to threaten shipping traffic in the strategic Gulf country.
Reuters said Tuesday Obama appeared in a televised interview with MSNBC's "Hardball," saying Washington had been "very straightforward" with Iranian leadership about the issue.
Just before Saudi's annoucement, additional US naval ships drew closer to Yemen's Arabian Sea coastline after the Pentagon reported the presence of Iranian cargo ships there.
During the "Hardball" interview, Obama said Iranian ships were in international waters, which was one reason the US was keeping its own ships in the Persian Gulf region.
"What we've said to [Iran] is that, 'If there are weapons delivered to factions within Yemen that could threaten navigation, that's a problem,'" the US president added. "And we're not sending them obscure messages. We send them very direct messages about it."
Pentagon Spokesperson Colonel Steve Warren, however, denied reports that a carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and cruiser USS Normandy had been sent to the region to intercept the Iranian convoy. The representative told reporters he did not believe US naval vessels had come into contact with Iran's 9-ship cluster.
Warren also did not confirm whether the US believed the Iranian convoy was carrying weapons supplies for the Houthis, or whether US naval forces would intercept Iranian vessels if they attempted to enter Yemeni territory.
Since the Saudi-led airstrike campaign began on March 25, tensions between Sunni Saudi and Shiite Iran have been slowly boiling. Iran has accused Riyadh of unwarranted aggression on another country, while Saudi and other Sunni Arab leaders have accused Iran of backing the Houthi takeover of the internationally-recongized government of Hadi.
So far, no plans have been released to push forward peace talks between warring factions in Yemen.
