ZARIF: I think it’s posturing. I think it’s all going the wrong direction in addressing this issue. When the war in Yemen erupted over four years ago, we called for a ceasefire, immediate negotiations, humanitarian assistance and a formation of a broad-based government. Unfortunately U.S. allies- Saudi Arabia, believed that they could win this war militarily within four weeks. That’s why they didn’t accept our offer to mediate between them and the others and to bring about a negotiated solution. Now four and a half years after that, we see that all that military equipment that the United States provided to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, all the military logistical support that the United States and some other Western countries provided, did not help defeat a group of people, the Yemenis, who are basically cut off from the rest of the world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The United States says there’s no way this attack was launched from Yemen and that the Houthis, the Yemenis you’re talking about, don’t even have the ability to do what happened.
ZARIF: Well it is difficult for the United States to explain why its state of the art equipment was not able to intercept these weapons. But the fact of the matter is that the Houthis have accepted responsibility- responsibility for that. If it were a false flag operation, if somebody else did it, then they should look for that culprit. It wasn’t Iran. And if the United States believes it wasn’t the Yemenis then they should look for who- who did it, but for–
