Yemeni Minister of Transport Saleh al-Jibwani said that the UAE has started in the past few days to operate flights at Al-Rayyan airport in the province of Hadramout (east), without any coordination with the Yemeni Ministry of Transport.
He said the UAE was also using the country's ports to bring arms to rebels in Aden.
He pointed out that the UAE's violations of the sovereignty of the Yemeni state will be submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Maritime Organization and the relevant international bodies.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia's partner in the Yemen war, is based at Al-Rayyan airport as a military base and refuses to reopen it for security reasons, even though the forces of its so-called Hadrami elite control the cities and villages of the coast of Hadramaut.
Although the governor of Hadhramaut Faraj al-Bahsani announced in early April that the airport was inaugurated after being equipped and developed by the UAE, well-informed sources who spoke to Anatolia earlier in the airport confirmed that the operation had stalled.
The same sources attributed this to the pressure exerted by the UAE to sign the airport lease contract for Etihad Airways, a subsidiary of Emirates Airlines, a prerequisite for its opening.
Al-Rayyan International is one of the most prominent local airports, and the third after Sana'a and Aden airports in terms of equipment and services, and stopped working after the fall of the city of Mukalla by al-Qaeda members in April 2015, before resuming its work.
It also represents the lifeblood of four governorates, Hadhramaut and Shabwa, the richest governorates of Yemen with natural resources such as oil, gas and gold, in addition to Socotra, which has a unique water and plant diversity, and skilled adjacent to Oman.