Saudi-led coalition moves to stabilise south Yemen as allies face-off

TheSaudi-ledcoalitionfighting the Iran-aligned Houthis inYemenmoved on Monday to work out a ceasefire as nominalalliesin thesouthof the country turned on each other in a power struggle that has fractured the military alliance.

SaudiArabia and the United Arab Emirates, the main powers inYemen's Sunni Muslimcoalition, formed a joint committee to oversee a ceasefire between UAE-backedsouthern separatists andSaudi-backed government forces in the provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, said a joint statement carried on state media.

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"Internal dialogue, and not fighting, is the only way to resolve internalYemeni differences,"Saudivice minister of defence, Khalid bin Salman, tweeted on Monday.

"We are working with the UAE for security and stability in Aden, Shabwa, and Abyan and ... to unify ranks and voices to combat terrorist threats, whether from the Iran-backed Houthis or from al Qaeda and Daesh (Islamic State)," Khalid, a son of theSaudiking, said.

Separatists forces early this month took over thesouthern port of Aden, the interim seat of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government, and last week extended their reach to the capital of nearby Abyan.

Southern fighters and government forces have also clashed in the oil-producing Shabwa province.

Both sides are part of theSaudi-led, Western-backedcoalitionthat intervened inYemenin 2015 against the Houthis, who ousted Hadi's government from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014.

But the UAE-backedSouthern Transitional Council (STC), which seeks self-rule in thesouth, seized control of Aden after accusing a party allied to Hadi of being complicit in a Houthi attack onsouthern forces.

The standoffhas exposed a rift between regionalalliesSaudiArabia and the UAE, which in June scaleddown its presence inYemenunder Western pressure to end the devastating war but continues to support thousands ofsouthern separatist forces.

The violence in thesouthcomplicated UN efforts to implement peace deals elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula state and pave the way for negotiations to end a war that has killed tens of thousands and pushedYemento the brink of famine.

TheSaudi-UAE statement urged all parties to cooperate with the joint committee to disengage and redeploy troops and reiterated aSaudicall for a summit in the kingdom to resolve the standoff.

It also stressed the need to preserve "the interests, security, stability, independence and territorial integrity of theYemeni people under the leadership of the legitimate president of Yemen".

Hadi’s government has said it would not participate until separatists ceded control of sites they had seized.

The separatist STC has said it would not hand over control of government military camps in Aden and other areas until the Islamist Islah party, a backbone of Hadi's government, and northerners are removed from positions of power in thesouth.

The Houthis, who have recently stepped up missile and drone attacks onSaudicities, point to Aden as proof that Hadi, who resides in Riyadh, is unfit to rule.

The movement denies being a puppet of Iran and says it is fighting a corrupt system.