ISTANBUL / Anadolu Agency

Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council member Abdullah al-Alimi announced on Saturday that the government has called on the UN Security Council to convene to discuss the repercussions of the crisis over the Iranian flight to Sanaa.

Al-Alimi, according to the official Yemeni news agency Saba, considered that Iran "violated Yemeni sovereignty" by sending the Iranian plane "Mahan" to "transport a Houthi delegation from Sanaa to Tehran" on July 3.

He expected "a clear condemnation from the international community for the violation of Yemeni sovereignty."

Al-Alimi said: "What Iran has done represents a blatant violation of Yemeni sovereignty and a clear challenge to the United Nations and international legitimacy resolutions."

He claimed that the Houthi group used the issue of repatriating its delegation from Tehran to "cover up the travel of experts and military personnel from Sanaa to Tehran."

Iranian authorities have not commented on the Yemeni accusations regarding the nature of the direct flight to Sanaa.

The Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen had vowed on July 4 to respond "with all firmness and unprecedented force" to any attempts to target Saudi Arabia or violate Yemen's sovereignty, following the Houthi group's threat to target airports and vital interests in the kingdom.

The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, threatened that the group would respond to any attempt to breach Yemeni airspace or target the country with a "comprehensive response" affecting Saudi airports and vital interests "on land and sea."

Saree claimed in a statement that "a formation of Saudi warplanes violated the airspace of Yemeni provinces on Friday (July 3) in an attempt to prevent an Iranian civilian plane from landing at Sanaa International Airport."

He said that "the Iranian plane was carrying more than 200 stranded people, wounded, and patients, and that the group's forces targeted the air formation with air defense missiles and forced it to leave the airspace."

At dawn on July 4, coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said in a statement that the Houthis' statements against Saudi Arabia "are nothing but an attempt to divert attention from their grave violations against the Yemeni people."

This is the first declared Iranian flight to arrive at Sanaa Airport in about 10 years, according to Yemeni media, while the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council considered the operation of the flight a "flagrant violation" of the country's sovereignty.

It is noteworthy that the Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah channel reported on July 3 that a delegation from the group went to Iran to participate in the funeral ceremony of the former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a US-Israeli raid on February 28.