MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/. The operation to remove more than one million barrels of oil from the decaying Safer supertanker off Yemen’s coast and corresponding agreements could be a model for settling the situation inside the country, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.
According to the spokeswoman, the operation has helped to prevent a large-scale environmental disaster. She stressed that Russia lauds the United Nations’ efforts and the "cooperability of Yemen’s internationally recognized authorities and the Ansar Allah movement in settling this protracted problem."
"We believe that the agreements on the FSO Safer could serve as an example for efforts toward mutually acceptable solutions in the interests of reaching a lasting truce in Yemen and launching a full-scale inclusive national dialogue under the UN auspices," she said.
The operation to pump oil from the FSO Safer to the Yemen vessel, which was previously called Nautica, began on July 25. Employees of the SMIT company, with which the UN Development Program agreed on the safe removal of oil from the Safer and its towing to a dump, stabilized the tanker ahead of the operation.
The Safer oil supertanker had been anchored near the Yemeni port of Ras Isa for eight years amid the ongoing confrontation between the Yemeni government forces and the Ansar Allah (the Houthi) movement. According to the Yemeni government, the tanker held 1.14 million barrels of oil. The tanker ran the risk of exploding due to flammable gasses inside oil storage reservoirs. According to specialists, the explosion and a subsequent oil spill could spread across the entire Red Sea, exposing millions of people to polluted air, killing fish communities and disrupting navigation through the Suez Canal.