Hadi vows to defeat Iran’s designs
Says if central bank was moved to Aden earlier, the war would have ended ‘in six months’
Yemeni president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi has said that Yemenis would resist the attempts by Al Houthis to apply the Iranian model of government in the country, adding that he regretted not taking the decision of shifting the central bank of Aden in the early days of the war against the rebel movement.
“The Yemeni people will not accept the Iranian model in Yemen,” Hadi said in an interview with Al Jazeera broadcast on Thursday. “Iran harbours dreams of controlling Bab Al Mandab Strait,” he said, referring to Yemen’s Red Sea strait. The internationally recognised president said that the aim of the current war is to force Al Houthis and the ousted president to make concession, rather kicking them out of power.
In a move towards drying up Al Houthis’ financial sources, Hadi recently ordered relocating the central bank from Sana’a to the governmentcontrolled Aden, its temporary capital. Hadi said that if he had taken the decision early last year, the war would have ended within several months.
Endorsing the move, Arab central bank governors said yesterday they supported a move by Yemen’s government to relocate the central bank to Aden. At a meeting in Morocco on Thursday, Arab central banks said they backed the decision to relocate the central bank and would provide it with “necessary support”, according to a statement on state news agency SPA.
“There are no concerns about repercussions of the decision. We took the decision after the putschist Al Houthis and Saleh emptied the central bank’s coffers. If we had taken the decision earlier, the war would have stopped in six months,” he said.
He also said he committed himself to service the country’s internal and foreign debts after shifting the monetary authority.
In New York, Hadi continued his meetings with heads of international monetary bodies to highlight his motives for moving the central bank headquarter to Aden.
On Thursday, Hadi told Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund managing director, that his government is obliged to meet the country’s financial obligations including paying salaries of government employees. Saudi