Power-sharing agreement: A new page in the history of Yemen

The proposed equal division of ministries between the southern and northern provinces under the Riyadh Agreement augurs well not just for southerners, but for all Yemenis. (File/AFP)
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Updated 16 December 2019
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Power-sharing agreement: A new page in the history of Yemen

  • Tensions between southern separatists and the Yemeni government eased after a power-sharing deal was signed in Riyadh
  • Clashes between the anti-Houthi coalition in August resurfaced decades of internal turmoil.

DUBAI: Tensions between Yemen’s pro-secession Southern leadership and the internationally recognised government are easing now that a power-sharing deal has been signed, which halted clashes between the anti-Houthi coalition that had resurfaced decades of internal turmoil.
The new arrangement - signed in Saudi Arabia - calls for an equal number of ministries between each of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and supporters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

“The deal was obviously meant to defuse tensions between the STC and the Yemeni government, which is a welcome step,” Fatima Al-Asrar, a Yemen analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told Arab News.

“But any deal reached on the south needs continuous dialogue ... to avoid the same scenario repeating itself.”




President Hadi (C-R) and STC member and former Aden governor Nasser Al-Khabji, sign documents during a peace-signing ceremony in capital Riyadh, Nov. 5, 2019. (AFP)


The negotiations began in August in the Saudi city of Jeddah after infighting threatened the unity of a coalition comprising STC forces and Hadi loyalists, which for years had been battling the Iran-allied Houthi militias.
The STC, representing secessionist southern interests and led by Aidarous Al-Zoubeidi, had opened a new front in Yemen’s multifaceted conflict when its elite military wing took control of Aden, where the government was based.

For a brief period, STC soldiers and Yemeni government troops clashed for control of Aden, leaving dozens dead and many more wounded.
The violence forced the government to return to Riyadh, in a setback reminiscent of its relocation to the Saudi capital in March 2015, around the time the coalition first intervened in a bid to halt a Houthi takeover.
The spark for the violence in Aden was a Houthi attack on a military parade in Aden on Aug. 1 that killed more than 30 STC soldiers.

Rightly or wrongly, some southerners felt that Hadi’s government had failed to share intelligence on Houthi threats.




The formation of the STC was first announced in May 2017 by Aidarous Al-Zoubeidi, a former governor of Aden. (AFP)

The formation of the STC was first announced in May 2017 by Al-Zoubeidi, a former governor of Aden.
A month earlier, fighting at Aden airport between the government and southern secessionists had prompted Hadi to dismiss Al-Zoubeidi.
Within a week, a mass rally opposing Hadi’s decision was organized by the Southern Movement, locally known as Al-Hirak, a coalition whose goal is political autonomy for Yemen’s south.

The STC’s attempt to seize power in Aden in August reflected the pent-up political aspirations of many southerners, who wanted the region to revert to its status as an autonomous, socially progressive entity.

The brief civil war of 1994 might have ended with a decisive victory for the northerners, but the outcome failed to stamp out separatist sentiments.
If anything, the ensuing years reinforced the conviction of many southerners that secession, not political reforms, was the solution to their problems.

However, southerners were not alone in their dissatisfaction with the political climate in Yemen. The uprising in 2011 was essentially a revolt against the authoritarian rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was president for 33 years until he relinquished power in 2012 in the face of mounting public opposition.

The mass rallies spoke to the frustrations of all Yemenis who did not live in Sanaa, a city where economic power and privileges was concentrated.
“The roots of this conflict are much more local, and they have a lot more to do with the political economy, struggles and frustrated regionalism,” Jane Kinninmont, Chatham House Middle East and North Africa Program head, said during a panel discussion in London on March 21.
“As in many countries, you’ve had an elite heavily concentrated in the capital who’ve traditionally benefited more from the country’s resources than pretty much anybody else. Grievances in all of Yemen’s regions, not only the south, have festered for a long time.”

Southerners in particular had complained of discrimination in economic opportunities and public services since Yemeni unification in 1990.
Saleh had forced thousands of southern civil servants and soldiers into early retirement, and appropriated nationalized agricultural land and property in the region.
He also restructured the southern administration as elite tribesmen started to project power across the region, while economic conditions in the south began to deteriorate.
Ali Salem Al-Beidh, vice president under Saleh, quit the Cabinet shortly after unification, claiming that the new government was systematically marginalizing southerners.
Southern frustrations with the post-unification situation led to the 1994 civil war. “When the unification deal was signed, the north didn’t really want an equal share of power or a true sense of unity. They just wanted their rule,” Nayef Ali Salem Al-Beidh, the son of Ali Salem Al-Beidh, told Arab News.




Former President Ali Abdallah Saleh (R) and former vice-president Ali Salim Al-Beidh on April 25, 1993, in Sanaa just before Al-Beidh returned to the South and claimed Saleh was systematically marginalizing southerners. (AFP)

The war ended with the defeat of the southern forces, driving many separatist leaders and activists into exile.
All hopes of secession quickly faded as Saleh consolidated his position as the leader of a unified Yemen.
Following the civil war, the number of southerners in government declined as Saleh formed a coalition with the Al-Islah party from 1994 to 1997.
“Unity between the north and south ended in 1994 when they (northern leaders) entered the south and occupied it,” said Nayef, who is currently based in the UAE.
In late 2001, a group called Sons of Southern and Eastern Provinces sent a letter to Saleh demanding a greater share of national wealth.
The increasing friction had other causes too. The geopolitical landscapes of northern and southern Yemen, shaped by different histories, have little in common.
Following the withdrawal of colonial power Britain, South Yemen became the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY).
From 1967 to 1990, it was ruled by the Yemeni Socialist Party, which adopted Marxist policies and maintained close ties with the Soviet Union and other communist states.
South Yemen nationalized key industries, limited property rights and granted women equal rights to men.

These policies were uncommon in the Arab world. Polygamous, child and forced marriages were outlawed, education was secularized, and Shariah law was replaced by a legal code.

By contrast, a succession of imams had ruled the north, or the Yemen Arab Republic, since 1918.
It became a republic after an Egypt-backed revolution in 1962. A civil war raged in the north from 1962 to 1970, drawing in a number of regional powers.
Saleh, who had served as president of North Yemen from 1978 to 1990, learned from the failures of five presidents, two of whom were assassinated.
He ruled the fractured country by cooperating with tribal leaders and sharing with them political and military power.
“The north is ruled by tribes,” Nayef said, underscoring what makes the north and south culturally different.
“The situation in Yemen is very complicated because there are many differences between the various political factions and regions.”




President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi (C) gives a speech during the opening of a national dialogue conference in Sanaa on March 18, 2013. (AFP)

Nayef sees federal rule as the only viable solution to the current imbroglio. Federalization of Yemen was the recommendation of a National Dialogue Conference that took place in 2014, two years after Saleh was deposed.
Participants in that meeting agreed in principle on Yemen’s transformation into a six-region federal system.
However, the final outcome of the National Dialogue Conference did not address the demands of the separatists and the Houthi militias.
This resulted in strained relations between the various factions. The Houthi militias capitalized on the instability to seize Sanaa in 2014, and thereafter to extend their rule, dragging the country into a conflict that continues to this day.
Against this historical backdrop, the proposed equal division of ministries between the southern and northern provinces under the Riyadh Agreement augurs well not just for southerners, but for all Yemenis. 

 


Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

Updated 18 February 2025
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

  • The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.

 


More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

People walk past shops in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 19 February 2025
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More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

  • “Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

GENEVA: More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad, including 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.
Assad was toppled in December in a rebel offensive, putting an end to his family’s decades-long grip on power in the Middle Eastern country and bookmarking a civil war that broke out in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes.
The Islamist-led rebels whose offensive ousted Assad have sought to assure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.
“Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.
“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though, otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.
At a meeting in Paris in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Turkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”
The meeting’s final statement also pledged support for Syria’s new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
 

 


Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

Updated 19 February 2025
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Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck weapons which it said belonged to the former Syrian administration in southern Syria.

 


Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

Updated 18 February 2025
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Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

  • France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco

ALGIERS: Algeria on Tuesday denounced a visit by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati to Western Sahara, after Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory, as “objectionable on multiple levels.”
The vast desert territory is a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati, who described her visit as “historic,” launched with Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid a French cultural mission in the territory’s main city, Laayoune.
An Algerian foreign ministry statement posted on social media Tuesday said the visit “reflects blatant disregard for international legality by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”
“This visit reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonization process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled,” it said.
Dati’s trip, a first for a French official, “reflects the detestable image of a former colonial power in solidarity with a new one,” the statement added.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara to be a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said Rabat’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
In October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front said it was ending a 29-year ceasefire with Morocco after Moroccan troops were deployed to the far south of the territory to remove independence supporters blocking the only road to Mauritania.
The Polisario Front claims the route is illegal, arguing that it did not exist when the ceasefire was established in 1991.
 

 


Kurdistan region’s pipeline restart ready to go, foreign minister says

Updated 18 February 2025
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Kurdistan region’s pipeline restart ready to go, foreign minister says

  • Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently

BAGHDAD: A major pipeline connecting Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to Turkiye is ready to reopen and resume exports, the Kurdish foreign minister said on Tuesday, potentially ending a dispute between Baghdad and Irbil that led to the closure of the pipeline in 2023.
Foreign Minister Safeen Dizayee declined to say when the pipeline would reopen but said it would mark a turning point in relations between Kurdistan and Baghdad.
Iraq’s oil minister said on Monday the Iraq-Turkiye pipeline (ITP) will resume next week.
“All arrangements that were set on the table have been agreed to, with the aim to prepare for re-exports. There shouldn’t be any hiccups. The legal aspects have been met, the technical aspects are in place,” Dizayee told Reuters by phone. “The button just has to be pushed to increase production and then re-export.”
The oil flows were halted by Turkiye in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorized pipeline exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government between 2014 and 2018.
Negotiations to restart the pipeline have been ongoing, with US officials participating in some of the talks.
Resuming oil exports will boost the Kurdistan region’s budget, Dizayee said.
“This means Kurdistan will benefit from the federal budget and hopefully this will end the saga of (civil servants’) salaries coming or not coming, received in dribs and drabs,” Dizayee said.
Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently.
Oil producers in the Kurdistan region have had to wind down production without an export route. It will likely take some time for them to restart their oil wells and for the pipeline to use its full capacity. Before it was shut down, it transported around 450,000 barrels per day.
“They’ve invested a lot. It was a risk they took and it must pay off. They [the companies] need assurances that their investment will not be down the drain,” Dizayee said. “Compensation is something that needs to be discussed.”
An international consultancy will be brought in to do an assessment of the cost of production, expenses, cost recovery and the production sharing agreements, he said.