SANA’A (Dispatches) –
Former Yemeni president Abed Rabbuh Mansur Hadi stepped down under pressure from Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Citing Saudi and Yemeni officials, who added that the exiled former president is now being held under de-facto home arrest in Riyadh and has limited communications with the outside world.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, also known as MBS, allegedly handed Hadi a “written order” during talks in Riyadh, which outlined provisions for the delegation of powers to the newly created council.
MBS told Hadi that other Yemeni leaders had agreed that it was time for him to relinquish power, according to the officials.
On April 7, Hadi announced that he had delegated his powers to the “presidential leadership” council and dismissed vice president Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.
According to the report, Hadi implemented the order after some Saudi officials made threats against him.
The announcement followed talks on the Yemeni conflict held by the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at the regional union’s headquarters in Riyadh. Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement had boycotted the summit, insisting that it would not travel to enemy territory for talks.
Hadi’s move also came days after a fragile two-month truce, brokered by the United Nations, came into effect.
The Saudi regime is widely blamed for the current humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, where about 80 percent of its 30 million population are in need of some form of aid for survival.
Ansarullah said Hadi’s move has deprived the United Nations of its excuse to continue supporting the aggressors in the seven-year Saudi-led war.
“The international community and the UN no longer have an excuse to continue using the term ‘internationally recognized Yemeni government’ to massacre the Yemeni nation and enforce a tight siege on the Arab country,” Ansarullah spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam said on April 7.
Hadi had once resigned from presidency in early 2015 and later fled to Riyadh amid a popular uprising led by the Ansarullah movement. He rescinded his resignation after arriving in Saudi Arabia.
To reinstall Hadi, Saudi Arabia launched the bloody war against Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies and with arms and logistics support from the U.S. and several Western states.