Borrell hopes EU Red Sea Mission will be approved on Feb 19
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Last week, Josep Borrell announced that EU foreign ministers had agreed to set up its own mission in the Red Sea.
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European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell speaks during a joint press conference with the Guatemalan President-elect in Guatemala City on January 13, 2024 (AP)
EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell voiced confidence on Friday that the bloc's operation in the Red Sea to deter attacks from the Yemeni Armed Forces will gain final approval from the EU Foreign Affairs Council on February 19.
In his opening speech at the 3rd EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum in Brussels, he expressed that "Aspides [the EU mission in the Red Sea] will not conduct any operation on land, only to protect navigation at sea."
In mid-January, Borrell said the Red Sea was a vital maritime route for the whole world and Europe in particular, which is the reason why he would propose that the EU establish its own mission in the Red Sea. And last week, he announced that EU foreign ministers had agreed to set up the mission.
Borrell said on January 31 that the European Union aimed to establish and launch the maritime mission in the Red Sea no later than February 19, claiming that it would be "defensive" and no operations would be carried out on land. The EU mission, dubbed Aspides, allegedly aims to focus solely on protecting merchant ships by intercepting Yemeni rockets.
After the Yemeni Armed Forces vowed to target Israeli and Israeli-bound vessels in the Red and the Arabian seas amid the ongoing aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip, the Pentagon announced the creation of a multinational operation under the pretext of "securing navigation" in the Red Sea.
Under the operation, the US and UK forces recently carried out several aggressions against different locations in Yemen. Later, Sanaa declared that "all American and British interests have become legitimate targets for the Yemeni Armed Forces" in response.
Germany will send its frigate Hessen to the Red Sea next week to take part in a European operation to "protect merchant vessels" from the operations of the Yemeni Armed Forces in the region, the DPA news agency reported on Friday.
According to the news agency, the frigate, equipped, among other weapons, with air defense missiles, is expected to arrive in the Red Sea by the end of the month.
US, UK ‘got themselves in a quandary’: Sayyed al-Houthi
During a speech on Thursday, Sayyed Abul-Malik al-Houthi touched on the Yemeni Armed Forces’ operations, in support of the Resistance in Gaza and the Palestinian people, against ships heading to the Israeli occupation entity in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab.
In this context, he stressed, "Our role is effective and influential," and "the enemy is in despair."
Sayyed al-Houthi reiterated that the Yemeni forces "are at high readiness to target any ship heading to the occupying entity," stressing that the US and the UK "have gotten themselves in a quandary."
The Yemeni Resistance leader also confirmed that the Yemeni people "proved that the targeting was limited to the ships heading to the occupation entity, while the others were allowed safe and secure navigation," highlighting, in this regard, how "the Americans failed to protect the ships heading to the occupying entity, which they admitted."
In the same context, Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi explained that the Americans "tried to flex their muscles, under false pretenses, but they failed miserably just like their British accomplices, having stood impotently, unable to protect even their own ships."
According to the Yemeni leader, it is about time for the enemy to understand the inability of any ship to head to its ports through Bab al-Mandab as it "should pay the price for its continued aggression."
The Ansar Allah leader, once again, vowed that the military operations of the Yemeni Armed Forces will not stop "as long as the aggression continues, regardless of the American position, which will not affect our country’s effective stand, despite all the technologies it [the US] possesses."
Addressing the Americans, Sayyed Al-Houthi stressed that "instead of waging wars" here and there, US President Joe Biden should occupy himself "with his country’s crises and the problems caused by his policies."
As for the British, he pointed out that "they must deduce a lesson from the ship that went ablaze when we attacked it."
In this context, Ansar Allah’s leader stressed that the US aggression against Yemen "is a push for us to develop our military capabilities even more; capabilities that are manifested by the advanced missiles that we launch," noting that one of the signs of the failure of the goals of this aggression is the fact that Biden's administration resorted to China for intervention.
