Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Yemeni government returns to Aden after months in exile: spokesman | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55345014
Caption:

Yemen’s exiled Vice President and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah (C) arrives at Aden airport in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen, on August 1, 2015. (EPA/STR)


Yemen's exiled Vice President and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah (C) arrives at Aden airport in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen, on  August 1, 2015. (EPA/STR)

Yemen’s exiled Vice President and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah (C) arrives at Aden airport in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen, on August 1, 2015. (EPA/STR)

Aden, Reuters/Asharq Al-Awsat—Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah returned to the southern port city of Aden on Wednesday in a step towards restoring a government on home soil after months of working from exile with Gulf Arab allies to fight against Houthi control of the country.

Government spokesman Rajeh Badi said Bahah, who is also vice president, was accompanied by seven ministers when he arrived in Aden, which loyalist fighters backed by Saudi-led troops recaptured from Houthi forces in July.

“Khaled Bahah and the ministers who arrived with him are in Aden to stay permanently,” Badi said.

Bahah’s return from Saudi Arabia follows that of several other Yemeni ministers who relocated to Aden from the Kingdom in the weeks after the city was retaken in July. Bahah made a brief visit to Aden on August 1.

President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fled Aden for the Saudi capital Riyadh in March as Houthi forces closed in. Since its recapture, loyalist forces supported by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes have pushed northwards and driven back the Iranian-allied Houthis.

Gulf Arab ground forces and loyalists have now launched an offensive in Ma’rib province east of Sana’a seeking to drive the Houthis out of the capital, which the movement seized in September 2014.

The exiled government pulled out of UN-sponsored peace talks at the weekend but Badi said on Tuesday it was ready to join them if its Houthi foes publicly accepted a UN resolution calling on them to recognize Hadi as president and quit Yemen’s main cities.

Speaking at a news conference at Aden’s Al-Qasr hotel on Wednesday, Badi said that “the security file, reconstruction and incorporating the southern resistance into the army” were at the top of the government’s agenda, according to the local Aden Al-Ghad news website

The Houthis took over Aden and other areas of the country following a coup in February which deposed Hadi, Bahah, and the Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

The Saudi-led anti-Houthi campaign, which came at Hadi’s request, seeks to restore the internationally recognized president and his government to power and has been ongoing since March 26.