ADEN, Yemen —
Yemen’s new leaders took a ceremonial oath of office under tight security on
Tuesday, completing a major shake-up aimed at ending seven years of war with
the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
اضافة اعلان
The newly formed,
eight-man leadership council performed a largely symbolic swearing-in in Aden
witnessed by members of a parliament elected in 2003, as hundreds of soldiers
patrolled the southern city, a government official told AFP.
Ex-president
Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia when the war started in 2015,
handed over his “full powers” to the council in a televised address on April 7.
The ceremony was
not announced in advance and was held at an undisclosed location for security
reasons. In December 2020, about 20 people died in an attack on Aden airport as
government officials arrived.
The Houthis took
over the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention to
support the government the following year and a war that has caused what the
United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
A fragile,
UN-brokered truce has largely held since April 2, the start of the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan, providing a rare respite from the fighting.
UN special envoy
Hans Grundberg attended the swearing-in, along with ambassadors from European
and Arab countries, the government official and parliament members told AFP.
The US special
envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, also attended, according to Yemen’s official
news agency.
Hadi’s surprise
announcement came on the last day of talks in Riyadh involving Yemen’s
government, the coalition and international envoys. The Houthis refused to
attend those talks because they were on “enemy” soil.
The
Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Saudi Arabia pushed the former president to
step down, confining him to his home and restricting his communications.
‘Ready for war’
The new leadership council, led by former Hadi adviser Rashad Al-Alimi,
is tasked with “negotiating with the Houthis for a permanent ceasefire”, Hadi
said in his announcement.
Its members
represent widely diverging views and include Aidarous Al-Zoubeidi, whose
secessionist
Southern Transitional Council wants to split Yemen back into two
countries — north and south, as was the case until 1990.
The council also
includes Tarek Saleh, the nephew of Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh who
was assassinated by his former Houthi allies in 2017.
Abdullah al-Alimi
— Rashad’s brother and also on the council — told AFP on Saturday that Yemen’s
new leaders remain ready to fight if peace efforts break down.
“Our first option
is peace, but we are ready for war,” Alimi said in an interview in Riyadh.
“We believe the
council is in a position, with the coalition support, to score a decisive
military victory,” he added.
Yemen’s conflict has
killed more than 150,000 people and over 200,000 have died indirectly,
including through hunger, unsafe water and disease, UN agencies estimate.
Eighty percent of the 30 million population is dependent on aid.
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