Saudi sets up maritime defence alliance to secure Red Sea

Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it had set up a maritime defence alliance to secure navigation around the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The move comes after Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis said last week they were imposing a maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and claimed attacks targeting Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea and oil infrastructure in the kingdom.

The narrow maritime artery has been a critical waterway for delivering vast quantities of Saudi crude to the international market, after energy exports from the Gulf were largely choked off the US-Iranian standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Saudi defence ministry issued a joint statement on behalf of the 14 countries in the alliance: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Turkey and Yemen.

The ministry said the alliance was "aimed at enhancing maritime security, safeguarding freedom of navigation, securing international trade routes and energy supply lines and protecting shared maritime interests in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden".

The ministry said it had invited 51 countries and organisations to a meeting about the alliance in Riyadh on Thursday.

It said representatives of 43 countries and an EU delegation attended, of which 14 countries confirmed their support while others were in the process of doing so.

Saudi Arabia and the Houthis traded fire earlier this month, for the first time in years, threatening a 2022 truce that has held despite expiring.