Aiming to stave off a threatened attack by either US or Saudi warships, the Iranian cargo ship full of humanitarian aid for Yemen will stop off at a UN center in Djibouti for inspection by UN personnel.
US and Saudi officials have repeatedly claimed that ships trying to deliver aid to Yemen, currently under Saudi siege, were actually carrying Iranian weapons, though repeated searches of such ships have turned up nothing.
Still, the Saudis have vigorously tried to keep aid ships from making deliveries in much of Yemen, claiming an invisible Iranian plot, and even destroyed the airport in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa to prevent a cargo plane from landing there.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry insists the decision to go to Djibouti was not primarily the result of Pentagon threats, but because with the end of the humanitarian ceasefire it was simply to dangerous to try to go directly to Yemen. The Saudis refused a UN call to extend that truce.