UN says it has found Iranian missiles in Yemen

The report from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' office said his staff examined two container launch units for anti-tank guided missiles recovered by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. 

"The Secretariat found that they had characteristics of Iranian manufacture," the report noted.

"The Secretariat also examined a partly disassembled surface-to-air missile seized by the Saudi-led coalition and observed that its features appeared to be consistent with those of an Iranian missile," it added.

A probe into the origin of the weapons continues, it added.

The Gulf monarchies and United States accuse Iran of supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen, and see this as justification for the military campaign they have been waging in Yemen since 2015.

While Iran supports the rebels politically, it denies supplying the militant group with arms.

The UN has in the past said that Yemen's Houthi rebels have fired Iranian-made missiles at Saudi Arabia, however it also noted it could not be certain that these weapons were in fact supplied by Iran, in what would be a violation of UN resolutions.

The findings came after it was announced that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would hold meetings with the government and Houthi delegations and address Thursday's closing session of the current round of Yemen peace talks in Sweden.

Western governments have pressed for an end to the war, which massively escalated when the Saudi-led alliance intervened in 2015 to restore the government of Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi after Houthis overran the capital.

The Sweden talks mark the first attempt in two years to broker an end to the Yemen conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 people - though rights groups say the actual figure is five times higher.

Some 14 million people are at imminent risk of starvation in Yemen, according to UN estimates.

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