South Yemeni separatists seek Islah ban
LONDON, Aug 14, (RTRS): Yemen’s southern separatists vowed on Wednesday to keep control over Aden, warning the only way out of the impasse that has fractured a Saudi-led military alliance was for Islamists and northerners to be removed from positions of power in the south.
The separatists, supported by coalition member the United Arab Emirates, effectively took over Aden, the temporary seat of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, over the weekend by seizing government military bases.
The Western-backed, Sunni Muslim alliance intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement that ousted President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014. His government relocated to Aden.
Southern fighters are a major component in the coalition’s battle against the Houthis. But the war has revived old strains between north and south Yemen – formerly separate countries that united into a single state in 1990 under then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The crisis has exposed a rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE as Abu Dhabi places national interests over their strategic alliance, distancing itself from Yemen and leaving Riyadh to deal with a messy war in the fractious Arabian Peninsula nation.
Abu Dhabi has echoed Riyadh’s call for dialogue among Aden’s warring parties but stopped short of asking the southern forces that it funds and arms to cede control.
“Giving up control of Aden is not on the table at the moment,” Saleh Alnoud, British-based spokesman for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), told Reuters in an interview.
“We are there to remain – but to remain for a positive reason: to maintain stability,” Alnoud said.
He said that to end the stand-off, all elements of the Islamist Islah party – a backbone of Hadi’s government that the UAE sees as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood – should be ousted from posts of influence along with any northern politicians.