‘Yemen will never be united,’ says ex-aide to UAE sheikh

Abdul-Khaleq Abdullah, a UAE academic and former aide of Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Zayed, has said Yemen “will never” be united.

“There will never be one united Yemen after today,” Abdullah wrote on Twitter on Sunday, prompting hundreds of comments criticising him and his country’s interference in Yemen.

Advisor to the Yemeni Minister of Information Mukhtar Al-Rahbi replied to the tweet to say: “It is not your right or the right of anyone else to determine the fate of the Yemeni people.”

Al-Rajabi called for Abdullah to “leave the Yemenis to decide their fate and decide what they want far from your unstable mode.”

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Baraa Shiban, advisor of the Yemeni embassy in London, wrote: “I remind you that we met at the beginning of the Decisive Strom [operation] in 2015 and you were keen to see a united and stable Yemen. I do not understand why you insist on destroying all that was built?”

Yemeni journalist Khalid Al-Alwani wrote: “Do you accept that Yemenis call for dividing the UAE? Or they are prevented from what is not prevented for you? Then, where is the legitimacy for what the Arab coalition, led by Riyadh and Abu-Dhabi, has done?”

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are part of an Arab coalition fighting in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthis and forces loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The coalition entered the war in 2015 to reinstate the UN-backed President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. However the UAE has been found to be backing the Southern Transitional Council in an effort to split Yemen in to two countries, North and South, contrary to the objectives of the coalition.

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