The Iran-backed Houthi militias claimed they have signed an agreement with the United Nations to deal with a decaying oil tanker threatening to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil off the war-torn country's coast.
The UN has yet to confirm the deal and the legitimate government expressed its skepticism over it.
"A memorandum of understanding has been signed with the United Nations for the Safer tanker," Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthis' so-called supreme revolutionary committee, said in a Twitter post late on Saturday.
The Safer has been stranded off Yemen's Red Sea oil terminal of Ras Issa for more than six years, and UN officials have warned it could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.
A deal had previously been reached for a technical UN team to inspect the deteriorating vessel, built in 1976, and conduct whatever repairs may be feasible, but final agreement on logistical arrangements did not materialize due to Houthi stalling and obstacles.
No maintenance operations have been carried out on the Safer since 2015.
A government official questioned the agreement. Speaking on condition of anonymity to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said the Houthis are "experts at stalling and buying time."
"The Houthis view the Safer vessel as a negotiating card to extort the international community and the Saudi-led Arab coalition, and therefore, their claims over the removal of the oil cargo cannot be believed," he added.
"They are trying to buy more time given the military pressure they are coming under at several battlefronts," he remarked.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said last month that there was an agreement in principle to shift the oil from the tanker Safer to another ship. He gave no timeline.
