Yemen .. Southern Transitional pledges to thwart any presidential decisions issued without consultation

The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in Yemen said that it would prevent the implementation of any decisions on the ground that were not previously consulted with it, in reference to recent presidential decisions.

In a statement issued today, Sunday, after a meeting of its presidency in the interim capital, Aden, the council called on the Saudi-Emirati coalition to assume its responsibilities as a sponsor of the Riyadh Agreement, and work to cancel the recent presidential decisions.

He said that the uniqueness of issuing such decisions has no goal "other than fabricating obstacles and pushing the situation towards confrontation," according to the statement.

And the Southern Transitional demanded the redeployment of the Saudi committee to remove the military violations "in order to avoid a reaction."

This comes after about 10 days of decisions issued by Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which included the appointment of a speaker, two deputies, and a public prosecutor to the Shura Council, which were met with opposition from the Southern Transitional Council and the Nasserist and Socialist parties.

Last Tuesday, the head of the Shura Council, Ahmed Ubaid bin Dagher, and his two deputies, Abdullah Abu Al-Ghaith and Wahi Aman, took the constitutional oath before President Hadi.

The oath was taken at Hadi's residence in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, despite the objections expressed by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional.

Governmental comment

For his part, the Yemeni Undersecretary for the Ministry of Information, Muhammad Qizan, said that the statement of the Southern Transitional Council today aims to disavow the Riyadh Agreement, according to which the Council did not implement anything of it.

Qizan added - in an interview with Al Jazeera - that the Riyadh agreement is clear and published in the media, and does not provide for the president to waive any of his powers to any party.

On November 5, 2019, the Yemeni government signed an agreement in Riyadh with the Southern Transitional Council, which includes its participation in a 50/50 government between the north and south, and political, military and security arrangements.

However, the agreement remained unimplemented, and the two sides exchanged accusations of obstructing it, before a mechanism was signed to speed up the agreement in July 2020, and the first of its provisions to form the government were implemented on December 18.