The pro-UAE and pro-Saudi forces have failed to reach a peace deal to end their conflict in southern Yemen after several days of intense peace talks.
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According to reports from Yemen, the two sides were unable to reach an agreement on who will control the port-city of Aden and a cessation of hostilities deal that would put an end to the fighting.
Saudi Arabia, leader of an Arab coalition battling Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, was hosting indirect talks to resolve the crisis between UAE-backed separatists and the Saudi-backed government amid a rift between Riyadh and its ally Abu Dhabi.
The war for the south between the two nominal allies in the coalition is threatening to complicate U.N. efforts to end the multi-tiered war, which contains conflicts within conflicts.
Saudi Arabia called on the separatists, who seek to revive the former South Yemen republic, to cede control of Aden and voiced its support for President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government on Thursday, threatening “to react decisively”.
Two Yemeni officials said the Saudi statement came after the talks, in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, reached a dead-end and both sides were gathering troops to prepare for further battle.
Leaders of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), backed by Abu Dhabi, rejected the inclusion of their forces under the authority of the Saudi-backed government, they said.
The STC has tens of thousands of fighters armed and trained by UAE’s armed forces.
“The situation is headed towards war, so be ready people of the south... Talks have failed, war is declared,” the STC’s Security Belt forces said in a twitter post early on Friday.
The talks also stalled over the separatists’ role in the government, after the separatists asked for the vice-president position along with two major ministries. Yemen’s current vice-president is Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, a politically powerful army general allied with Hadi.