TEHRAN – Iran’s Foreign
Ministry has said it has recalled its ambassador in Yemen for medical treatment as he has been infected by the coronavirus.
The ministry said on its website that Ambassador Hassan Irloo was in need of urgent medical care after being infected for several days, and was en route to Iran.
Iran’s ambassador flew out of the Yemeni capital to receive Covid treatment Saturday in a rare exemption from an air blockade enforced by a Saudi-led coalition, Saudi and Iranian officials said.
“The ambassador left on an Iraqi aircraft and is probably now in Baghdad,” a senior Saudi official familiar with Yemeni affairs told AFP.
He said the flight was organized at the request of the Sanaa-based council administering the country and agreed by Saudi authorities following mediation by Iraq and Oman.
Iraq has hosted several exploratory meetings between Iranian and Saudi officials seeking a thaw in relations after years of strained ties.
Oman is the only Persian Gulf Arab state that has remained neutral in the Yemen conflict and has frequently mediated with the two sides.
In Sanaa, Yemeni spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam tweeted that an understanding between Iran and Saudi Arabia brokered by Iraq had allowed the ambassador’s evacuation on health grounds.
Tehran sent Irloo as its ambassador to Sanaa in October last year.
The Wall Street Journal had claimed Friday that the request for a flight out for the ambassador was being seen by Saudi officials as a sign of strains between Tehran and the Sanaa-bases authorities.
But speaking to AFP on Saturday, a second Saudi official confirmed that the ambassador’s departure had been a medical evacuation.
“The Iranians told us through the Omanis that their ambassador had contracted Covid and must get out,” the official said. “We agreed to let him out for humanitarian reasons.”
Yemen’s healthcare system has been devastated by seven years of the Saudi-led war which has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.