Damascus Requests Houthi Diplomats to Leave Amid Continued Improvement of Syria-Saudi Relations

The Ansar Allah (Houthi) group handed over the Yemeni embassy in Syria, and Yemen’s UN-recognized government will take over the embassy, said Abdul Rahman Al-Ahnoumi, a member of the Houthi group.

In a post on platform X, he wrote, “The closure of the Yemeni embassy in Syria has reasons related to the Saudi-Syrian relationship. The Syrians requested the closure of the Yemeni embassy in response to Saudi Arabia’s conditions. In return for the opening of the Saudi embassy in Syria, the Saudis demanded the closure of our embassy.”

The Houthi group controls the Yemeni embassies in Iran and Syria, two countries that supported the Houthi coup against the Yemeni government in 2015. The Houthi takeover of Sanaa prompted a Saudi military intervention, and diplomatic relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia were severed.

However, the two countries began normalizing relations in previous months.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak said in press statements that his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Al-Miqdad, informed him that Damascus had decided to hand over the Yemeni embassy to the legitimate government after requesting the Houthi representative to leave.

In early September, Bin Mubarak met with Al-Miqdad on the sidelines of the Arab League meeting, which was the first official meeting between Yemen and Syria since 2011.