BAHRAIN – Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin on Thursday accused Iran of trying to break a naval blockade on his country aimed at cutting off supplies to Shiite rebels.

In a joint news conference with his Bahraini counterpart, Khalid Al-Khalifa, Yassin said, “Iran is carrying out desperate attempts to violate the naval blockade on Yemen.”

Bahrain is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes against the rebels as well as imposed the naval blockade.

Yemen, strategically located near key shipping routes and bordering oil-rich Saudi Arabia, is sinking deeper into a multisided civil conflict.

The fighting has drawn in armed groups including the Iran-backed Houthi rebels allied with renegade army units loyal to ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against supporters of fugitive President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Yassin described the Yemen as an “attack on all Yemenis based on an Iranian plot implemented by the Houthi militia.”

The United States, which has provided logistics and intelligence support to the coalition, has sent an aircraft carrier to monitor the movements of Iranian ships near Yemen.

Shiite Iran has strongly criticized the intervention in Yemen and has rejected accusations of arming the rebels.

Yassin is visiting Bahrain as part of a delegation led by Vice President Khaled Bahah, also prime minister of the government-in-exile operating from Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia.

Bahah was received on Thursday by Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa who reassured him on Manama’s “commitment to supporting its regional allies in their efforts to restore peace and security in Yemen,” the official Bahrain News Agency reported.

Bahrain itself accuses Tehran of backing the Sunni dynasty’s Shiite opponents.