Yemen’s New Foreign Minister Vows to End Attempts to Divide Country

Yemen’s new foreign minister is vowing that the government will “end any attempt to tear apart our homeland.”

In his address to the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 28, Mohammed Abdullah al-Hadrami sharply criticized Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who control much of the country’s north and the United Arab Emirates, which supports forces seeking their own nation in the south.

Al-Hadrami called Iran “the main sponsor of terrorism throughout the world” and urged an end to “this Iranian-Houthi coup d’etat in Yemen.” He thanked Saudi Arabia for helping his internationally recognized government resist Houthi “militias who are dreaming of a theocracy.”

Al-Hadrami told the U.N. General Assembly Saturday that attacks he said were carried out by Emirati air assets in the south have also “undermined the stability of our homeland.” And he said the UAE “aggression” has undermined the Saudi-led coalition’s goal of assisting the government.

A Saudi-led coalition that included the UAE has been fighting the Houthis since 2015 on behalf of the internationally recognized government. The civil war has killed tens of thousands of people and sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the Arab world’s most impoverished country.

Al-Hadrami said he hopes that “we will meet next year at a time when peace will have reigned in Yemen.”