Physical Address
Indirizzo: Via Mario Greco 60, Buttigliera Alta, 10090, Torino, Italy
Will South Yemen become a state again?
Recent developments suggest that South Yemen (1967-1990) could reappear as a state again.
Military forces linked with the Southern Transitional Council launched an operation earlier this month in the eastern provinces of Hadhramaut and Al-Mahra, taking over control from the internationally recognized PLC government of Yemen, which is partly based in Aden and partly based in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia).
On December 11th, the PLC’s Parliament issued a statement condemning the recent STC advances and warning of risks of increased bloodshed and economic collapse.
In response, STC President Major Gen Aidrous al-Zubaidi issued a defiant statement appealing to the West.
In the statement, he described southern Yemenis as peace-loving people sharing Western values and rejecting both terrorism and political Islam, accusing the PLC of close cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood through its inclusion of Al-Islah, Yemen’s main Sunni Islamist political party which widely regarded as the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, into the coalition government.
He also framed STC’s actions as liberating the historical State of South Arabia from Aden to Hadhramaut to Al-Mahra as an “indivisible sovereign right.”
He rejected any division or separation of the eastern provinces and called unity non-negotiable, urging Western support for southern independence ambitions.
The STC president’s claims have been strengthened by his military advances and the PLC parliament’s weakening legitimacy in Yemen as it remains largely inactive with most members based abroad and not carrying out any real oversight of the PLC government’s actions.
The STC also accuses the PLC of doing nothing about the main threat which is the Houthis and their allies in Tehran while the STC is busy fighting both the Houthis and the remnants of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on the frontlines.
Following the STC’s rapid gains in early December, their military forces now control all southern governorates and could be about to push further north to officially recreate the state of South Yemen.