Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – The Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Muhammad Al Jaber, revealed the details of the clashes that took place between the Yemeni government forces and the Southern Transitional Council in 2019, and the role of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in calming the atmosphere.
Al Jaber said in his appearance on the “Al-Liwan” program with the Saudi journalist Abdullah Al-Mudaifer: “There have been ongoing conflicts in the south for a long time… From their positions, they formed the Southern Transitional Council in 2017, and considered it a political body demanding the southern cause, southern secession, and its return as a single state, and this caused a rift in the south and between the south and the north,” he said.
The Saudi ambassador added, “This constantly increasing conflict has led to clashes between the government and the Southern Transitional Council, and this conflict in which Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened to stop this fighting, and we signed the Riyadh Agreement and succeeded in that,” as he put it.
Al Jaber added, “Al-Houthi took advantage of this rift, as the legitimate forces were 35 km from Sanaa airport…but then the Houthis advanced and began launching an attack towards Marib,” he said.
The Saudi ambassador to Yemen believed that the Houthis misunderstood the US administration’s decision to remove them from the lists of terrorism, as Washington aimed from this decision to respond to the calls of humanitarian organizations, while the Houthis understood the matter as support for them, so they doubled their attacks on Saudi Arabia, he said.