Yemen’s president set to visit Moscow to ease separatist tensions

Yemen’s President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi set to visit Russia on April 1 Yemen’s President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi will visit Russia next week, to gain political support in dealing with the country’s turbulent transitional change, say diplomatic sources. The three-day trip, expected to begin on April 1, will be the first of its kind since Hadi came to office in February 2012.
Yemen has struggled to restore normality since the president was elected following nearly a year of Arab Spring-style protests that forced his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years in power.
Diplomatic sources at the Yemeni Embassy in Moscow have announced that the visit will coincide with the 85th signing of trade agreement between the two countries. The department added that the trip will focus on “strengthening economic and political ties between Yemen and Russia.”
Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador to Yemen revealed that the Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to discuss the development of Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC), currently taking place in the country’s capital, Sanaa.
The UN-backed conference, which began on March 20 and expected to go on for the next six months, brings together some 565 representatives of the country's political parties, who will work on drafting a new constitution, preparing proposals on government decentralisation, and discussing the formation of a potential coalition government.
The event has been marred by rising political unrest witnessed in Yemen over the past few weeks.
Many protesters in the south of the country, often referred to as southern separatists, have repeatedly warned political parties against participating in the talks.
The southern separatist leader of the Socialist Party and former vice president of Yemen Ali Salem al-Beidh has complained of widespread discrimination by the country's government, including the dismissal of tens of thousands of administrators.
As a result, the southern separatists are calling for the re-establishment of the independent state of South Yemen, which merged with North Yemen in 1990 after the collapse of its main ally, the Soviet Union.
Sources have told Arabstoday that the Yemeni president is expected to call on Moscow to pressure leaders of the Yemeni opposition to abandon calls for a separate southern state and participate in the NDC talks.
In addition, reports have emerged that senior Yemeni officials are set to strike a deal with Russia to obtain advanced weapons for the country’s military, as part of a restructuring programme for the Yemeni army.
In other news, the UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar held a meeting on Thursday with the Yemeni Election Committee, to discuss the need for preparing a registry of Yemeni voters, as part of a move to hold national elections by February 2014.