The leader of a separatist group in Yemen refused a Saudi demand to fly to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for talks on Tuesday, heightening a standoff in which Yemen’s sovereignty hangs in the balance.
Aidarous al-Zubaidi is the leader of the Southern Transitional Council, a group of fighters and politicians who want to create an independent state called South Arabia. Last month, his group, which is backed by the United Arab Emirates, led a lightning offensive across southern Yemen, seizing swaths of strategically located territory.
That angered officials in neighboring Saudi Arabia. They pushed back, saying the moves threatened their national security. Over the weekend, Yemeni government forces recaptured territory with Saudi support.
The ensuing conflict has effectively become a proxy clash between Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, powerful U.S. allies who are increasingly at odds.
On Sunday, a Saudi-led military coalition told Mr. al-Zubaidi to travel to Riyadh within 48 hours for talks, the coalition said in a statement. A delegation of officials from the separatist group prepared to travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday night.
But instead of boarding the plane, Mr. al-Zubaidi decided to stay behind, sending other officials in his place, according to the coalition. Within hours, the Saudi-led coalition said it had launched a “limited pre-emptive strike” on Mr. al-Zubaidi’s home region in Yemen, where it said he had fled with “a large military force.” The Yemeni government said that it would prosecute Mr. al-Zubaidi for treason.
The Southern Transitional Council issued a rebuttal soon after, saying that Mr. al-Zubaidi had not fled but had decided to stay behind in the southern Yemeni capital of Aden, while sending a delegation of his colleagues to Saudi Arabia for negotiations.
“Yemen now stands on the edge of another violent and unpredictable chapter,” said Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemen specialist at Chatham House, a London research institution.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Southern Transitional Council said that it had lost contact with its colleagues once they arrived in Saudi Arabia.
“The council expresses its extreme concern at being unable to communicate or reach the delegation that arrived to Riyadh hours ago,” the group said in the statement. It went on to say that it had no official information about its colleagues’ “whereabouts or circumstances, which raises serious questions that must be immediately clarified.”
The Saudi government did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the delegation’s whereabouts.
The series of events was a shocking development at a time when officials in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and the United States all appeared to be trying to resolve the crisis diplomatically.
On Tuesday, Massad Boulos, President Trump’s senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, traveled to Riyadh and met with senior Saudi officials as well as Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the internationally recognized Saudi-backed government in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry had said that the kingdom was ready to hold a diplomatic conference in Riyadh to discuss the future of southern Yemen, bringing together different factions including the Southern Transitional Council “to discuss just solutions to the southern cause.”
Yemen was divided into two countries for much of its modern history, with one government in the north and a Marxist state in the south. The two states united in 1990.
Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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