Yemen: Iran backing separatists

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has accused Iran of backing a faction of Yemen’s southern separatist movement seeking to secede by force of arms, a newspaper reported yesterday. “In the south, there are two movements: a peaceful one and another, which is not,” the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat quoted him as saying. “The latter resorts to the use of weapons, receives Iranian assistance and works for secession” of south Yemen, which was a separate state until 1990, Hadi charged. “I’m president of Yemen and I’m from the south, just like Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa who is also a southerner. We advocate national and global dialogue to bring Yemen out of its current situation, which is incompatible with 21st century norms,” Hadi added. A national dialogue conference proposed by the government is due to begin in November as part of Yemen’s transition process from the rule of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, ousted in February after a popular uprising. Southern separatists and Zaidis, who have been fighting in the north against Sanaa since 2004 have been invited to the conference. The Zaidis said they will participate, but the Southern Movement announced on Wednesday it “refuses to take part” in the dialogue. Some factions of the Southern Movement want autonomy for the south, but more hard-line members are pressing for a return to complete independence. After the 1990 union between North and South Yemen, the south broke away in 1994. The move sparked a short-lived civil war that ended with the region being overrun by northern troops. In 2007, the Southern Movement emerged as a social protest movement of retired officials and soldiers. But it has gradually grown more radical in its demands.