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With Saudis in background, it’s hard to see representative Yemeni govt.: Pundit

Tuesday, 12 April 2016 2:45 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 12 April 2016 2:45 PM ]

The photo taken on April 7, 2016 shows buildings heavily damaged in Saudi airstrikes on a street in Ta'izz, western Yemen. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has interviewed Naseer al-Omari, author and political commentator from New York, about the violation of a UN-brokered ceasefire in Yemen.

A rough transcription of the interview follows.

Press TV: We’re looking at this ceasefire, which is not really holding. But it seems like both sides want to comply with it, even though we’re still getting reports of the Saudi-led or the Saudis themselves who are involved in this aerial campaign breaking it. Overall what are we looking at even if it holds, we’re still back to square one, because you’re going to have a constitution, you’re going to have people who also are agreeing with it called the National Dialogue, which goes back to 2011?

Omari: That’s right. There are huge problems awaiting the Yemenis even with the successful ceasefire. Basically we have turned the clock back to one year back prior to the invasion of the Saudis of Yemen. The Yemenis are back around the negotiating table hopefully in Kuwait and the hope that they will manage to agree on transitional government.

Let me say that they haven’t even started the process of thinking about who is going to play which role and with the Saudis in the background it’s really hard to see how Yemenis can achieve any type of representative government.

Press TV: The Saudis want obviously Hadi back in power, I’m guessing, they’re still on that, but at the same time Hadi and his inner circle are having problems, because the vice president and prime minister, I guess, were fired with some internal conflict there. But ultimately do you think that Hadi even has any legitimacy with the Yemeni people?

Omari: On the ground he has some support, but he doesn’t have the power unfortunately. And whatever support he has is not adequate to bring all Yemenis together. And you are right. You pointed out to the differences among the Hadi government and these differences reflect the differences that Saudi Arabia has with other Arab allies. For example we know that the United Arab Emirates was supporting the outgoing prime minister.

So now we have a situation where the Hadi faction is, as you said, disintegrated and we have seen the return of al-Qaeda, which is another element. So who’s calling the shots on the ground from Hadi’s side. It’s really hard to say that Hadi is in charge of anything.

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