NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia on Thursday denied threatening the United Nations to cut off humanitarian funding to pressure the world body to remove the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen from a blacklist of child rights violators.

“We did not use threats or intimidation and we did not talk about funding,” Saudi Ambassador to UN, Abdullah Al-Moallami told reporters.

Al-Moallami also said that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon understood the Saudi clarification as a “threat.”

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi militias in Yemen has been removed from a UN blacklist of states and groups that violate children’s rights in conflict.