FM Shaya Mohsen Zindani named as new PM, as Saudi Arabia moves to consolidate control over Yemen’s presidential body.
Yemen’s Saudi-backed presidential leadership council has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Salem bin Breik and appointed Foreign Minister Shaya Mohsin al-Zindani as the country’s new prime minister, the state news agency Saba has reported.
Bin Breik formally submitted the resignation, which was approved by the council, before Zindani was named to form the next cabinet, Saba said on Thursday.
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Yemen has been a source of heightened tensions in recent months between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The main southern Yemeni separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council – which Saudi Arabia says is backed by the UAE – gained control of areas across southern and eastern Yemen in December, advancing to within reach of the Saudi border, which the kingdom considered a threat to its national security.
Saudi-backed fighters have since largely retaken those areas.
Sharp differences over a range of other issues, from geopolitics to oil output, have also been a cause of friction between the two Gulf powers.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE had previously worked together in a coalition battling the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen’s civil war, which led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s eight-seat presidential body on Thursday also dismissed a southern separatist currently in the UAE, consolidating Saudi Arabia’s full control over the country’s decision-making body.
“It was decided to terminate the membership of Faraj Salmeen Al-Bahsani in the Presidential Leadership Council,” the Saudi-backed body said in an official resolution.
Bahsani is a vice president of the STC who has been getting treatment in the UAE and was governor of oil-rich Hadramout province, Yemen’s largest and one of the two provinces the separatists had seized.
Earlier this month, STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi, who was also a PLC member, was dismissed after being accused of “high treason”, and fled to the UAE.
The resolution dismissing Bahsani cited a series of reasons, including his support for Zubaidi and the STC’s takeover, as well as statements that he gave.
On Sunday, Bahsani gave an interview to the AFP news agency in which he said southern forces, including southern separatists, would not agree to unite under the command of a Saudi-led coalition as announced the day before by the PLC chairman.
He also urged Saudi Arabia, which is hosting talks for Yemen’s southern factions, to allow participants to hold the meeting outside the kingdom.
“I call on Saudi Arabia to give southerners an opportunity to meet outside Saudi Arabia, away from the pressures that will be exerted on the participants if it is held in Riyadh,” he told AFP.
Last week, a high-level separatist delegation said it had dissolved the group from Riyadh, where they went for talks, a decision the STC says was made under duress, with the group accusing Saudi Arabia of detaining the team.
Later on Thursday, the PLC appointed two pro-Saudi figures to replace Zubaidi and Bahsani.
Lieutenant General Mahmoud al-Subaihi is a former defence minister and a security and defence adviser to PLC chairman Rashad al-Alimi.
Salem al-Khanbashi is the governor of Hadramout.
On Thursday, Saudi Arabia gave Yemen $90m to pay for two months’ worth of salaries for public servants and servicemen, Yemen’s prime minister said, a day after the kingdom pledged $0.5bn in humanitarian projects.