SANA’A (Dispatches) – The prime minister of Yemen’s National Salvation Government says Washington is aggressively seeking to establish control over energy reserves and ports in Yemen’s eastern provinces of Hadhramaut and al-Mahrah and loot them.
During a meeting with Hadhramaut and Mahra provincial governors, Luqman Baras and al-Qatabi Ali Hussein al-Faraj respectively, in the capital Sana’a on Saturday, Abdulaziz bin Habtoor strongly condemned a recent visit by the U.S. ambassador to the country’s energy-rich eastern provinces, stating that Steven Fagin’s trip falls within the framework of U.S. attempt to dominate Yemen’s oil wells and ports.
He underscored that occupier’s plots in the two provinces must be directly confronted, lauding popular resistance and steadfastness in the face of Saudi-led acts of hostility and schemes which are in flagrant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty
Habtoor added that Fagin’s visit clearly indicates that the United States is trying to plunder Yemen’s national assets and take advantage of its geopolitical position to serve its interests.
The Yemeni prime minister also stressed the need for supporting popular resistance in Hadhramaut and Mahra provinces in order to thwart colonial conspiracies.
In a related development, Tariq Salam, the governor of the southern province of Aden, said the U.S. and its allied militants have set their eyes on the natural resources of the strategic island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen.
Salam told al-Masirah television network that there are six oil-rich areas on Socotra that are of paramount significance, and that explains why the U.S. and its allied militants are seeking to control them.
In mid-June Mohammad Tahir Anam, an adviser to the Yemeni Supreme Political Council said the country’s armed forces will launch retaliatory strikes against oil installations deep inside Saudi Arabia in case the Riyadh-led coalition keeps on smuggling hauls of contraband crude oil and natural gas out of the country.
He warned the alliance that Yemeni authorities would not allow Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to further violate the extended United Nations-brokered ceasefire and plunder Yemeni oil and gas.
The Yemeni official reported a sharp increase in the theft of Yemeni oil and gas in addition to the seizure of Yemeni vessels off the coast of the country’s southern province of Shabwah.
Saudi Arabia launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the U.S. and other Western states.