PM declares end of Socotra tensions

Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed bin-Daghr has confirmed the end of a week of tensions between the government and the United Arab Emirates over Yemen’s four-island archipelago of Socotra in the Arabian Sea.

The United Arab Emirates deployed troops to the archipelago’s sea and air ports without consulting the Yemeni government whose head, Ahmed bin-Daghr, happened to be there at that moment earlier this month. That started Yemeni-Emirati tension, which Saudi Arabia intervened to defuse.

Yemen and the UAE are members of a broad Saudi-led Arab Coalition that has been assisting Yemen militarily and otherwise to restore its internationally recognized government in place of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

In a Facebook post on Monday, Bin-Daghr celebrated the successful end of the crisis. He posted, “The (Socotra) island’s crisis is over…we have all won our unity as an Arab Coalition” fighting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. “The national flag is flapping again on the sea and air ports.”

He called on everyone to unite against the one enemy, Houthis, and the “imminent threat” posed by Iran, the backer of Houthi rebels.