RIYADH: Instability in Yemen, where Shia rebels overran the capital last week, threatens regional security, interior ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council said after an emergency meeting yesterday.
“The GCC states will not stand idly by in the face of factional foreign intervention as Yemen’s security and the security of the GCC states are one and the same,” the ministers said in a statement after talks in Jeddah.
Yemeni authorities have accused Iran of backing the Houthi rebels in a similar fashion to their support for Lebanon’s powerful Shia militia Hezbollah.
The GCC ministers “confirm that any threats to the security and safety of Yemen and its citizens is a threat to regional security and stability, and interests of the people”.
The rebels advanced from their stronghold in northwestern mountains to the capital Sana’a last month, then seized key state installations with little or no resistance on September 21.
Gulf ministers called the events “regretful” and expressed “their serious concern at the threats faced by the Yemeni government and its institutions”.
Under a UN-brokered peace deal signed the day the rebels took control of Sana’a, they are supposed to withdraw once a new neutral prime minister is named. President Abd Rabuh Mansur Hadi has so far failed to appoint a new government chief. The deal also required Hadi to name an adviser from within the rebel movement.
The ministers denounced the “armed acts” that occurred. They called for seized official facilities to be returned to the Yemeni state, and expressed support for United Nations resolutions. AFP
