U.S. Senate upholds Trump's veto of Yemen resolution

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The U.S. Senate on Thursday sustained U.S. President Donald Trump's veto of a resolution demanding Washington to end its military support for the Saudi Arabia-led military operation in Yemen.

The vote was 53 to 45, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto, despite a handful of Trump's fellow Republicans joining Democrats in backing the resolution.

It was only the second veto of Trump's presidency, both this year. Neither has garnered the two-thirds support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives needed to override.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during "National Day of Prayer" Service at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 2, 2019. /Reuters Photo

Trump vetoed the resolution in April, calling it "an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members."

Backers of the resolution said they wanted to reassert the constitutional power of Congress to declare war and send a strong message to Saudi Arabia about the devastating civilian toll of the four-year-long civil war in Yemen.

"We've been materially assisting a foreign power in its efforts to bomb its adversaries. And sometimes helping that foreign power to bomb innocent civilians on the ground in the process," Republican Senator Mike Lee, a co-sponsor of the resolution, said before the vote.

The Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country's north, including the capital Sanaa and Hodeidah.

The four-year civil war has killed more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, displaced three million others and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

(Cover: People walk at the scene of an air strike that hit a gas station near a hospital in Kutaf district of the northwestern province of Saada, Yemen, March 28, 2019. /Reuters Photo)

Source(s): Reuters ,Xinhua News Agency