The resigned Yemeni Minister of Transport, Saleh al-Jabwani, said that the Yemeni National Army (forces loyal to President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi) would have launched a military campaign before Ramadan to retake Zanzibar and Aden from the hands of militias loyal to the UAE, but Saudi Arabia prevented it from that, and returned its military units to their barracks.
In statements to Al-Jazeera channel, Al-Jabwani added that this Saudi behavior led to what he called "Emirates militias" - in reference to the militants affiliated with the United Arab Emirates Southern Transitional Council - to "announce what it called self-management" in southern Yemen at the end of April the past.
Al-Jibwani - who resigned from his position at the end of last March after a dispute with the Prime Minister - considered this announcement "a departure from the Yemeni constitution and a violation of international law and the creation of an illegitimate authority," and he considered that this behavior "was received coldly by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."
Partners in the maneuver
"Why do you deal with these conditions in Aden in this way? Are you involved in this maneuver?" Al-Jabbwani asked, addressing his Saudis. He continued, "The answer was not completed, but procrastination and demanding the implementation of the Riyadh agreement was carried out."
He said that despite all this, the Yemeni army “carried out its new military campaign in Abyan to recover Zanzibar and Aden,” but the UAE summoned a fleet of ships loaded with tanks, artillery, Katyusha rockets, thermal missiles and mines, and provided its “militias” with all these modern weapons ”to stand a dam in front of the national army. So that he does not enter Aden and Zanzibar. "
"We were surprised that Saudi Arabia handed Socotra Island to the Emiratis, there are more than a thousand Saudi soldiers in Socotra, and they are not tourists there, but rather they came to preserve the Yemeni legal institutions in the Governorate of Socotra Archipelago, but they gave way to the Emirati militias to occupy the province and control the camps in Hadiboh ( The capital of the governorate) and it descends the Yemeni flag and raises the flags of the Emirates, the flags of the former South Country, and the flag of the Sultanate of the Mehr.
Conspiracy against legality
"We were counting on strong Saudi intervention, as the kingdom interfered in Yemen and established the coalition to restore legitimacy and restore Sanaa from the Houthi militia, and if we see a new militia coup in Aden," the Yemeni official added.
He said that this means that "there is collusion in what happened in Socotra, and that there is a conspiracy against Yemeni legitimacy," considering that "the presence of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in Yemen after it took place in Socotra is an illegal presence, and it must be faced by the Yemeni people with a decisive position." .
"Socotra is a Yemeni land, and we will not leave an inch of the land of Yemen for any gas or occupied, whatever the sacrifices," he said. He said that Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed "must realize that one grain of Yemen's soil is equal to his palaces, his king and his throne, and the Yemenis will sacrifice their lives from For their country, and Yemen is not a bridge in Dubai, nor a hotel for fun. "
He called on Saudi Arabia to "review its accounts if it wants a good neighborhood with Yemen, and if it remains the way it is today, then the Yemenis will have another matter regarding the Saudi presence in Yemen."