Oman welcomes UN operation to avert oil spill disaster off Yemen

The Sultanate of Oman has welcomed the start of the process of unloading oil from the decaying supertanker FSO Safer off Yemen.

The operation promises to avert an environmental catastrophe in the coastal waters of Yemen and the entire Red Sea.

A Foreign Ministry statement praised the efforts of the United Nations and the cooperation of the Yemeni parties and the international community to transfer more than one million barrels of oil to another tanker.

The statement says Oman hopes that this will contribute to a solution acceptable to all parties to settle the Yemeni conflict through dialogue between the various Yemeni political forces under the auspices of the United Nations.

In a statement UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “We need to keep working to defuse what remains a ticking time bomb and avoid what would be be by far the worst oil spill of our era.”

For more information on the UN operation please click here.

This is an unofficial English version of an Arabic report. To view the official Arabic text, click here.