Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday its national security was a red line and backed a call for UAE forces to leave Yemen within 24 hours, shortly after a Saudi-led coalition carried out an airstrike on the southern Yemeni port of Mukalla.
The warning represented Riyadh’s strongest language against Abu Dhabi yet, as the coalition struck what it described as foreign military support to UAE-backed southern separatists, and the head of Yemen’s Saudi-backed presidential council set the deadline for Emirati forces to leave.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both major players in the OPEC oil exporters’ group, and any disagreements between the two could hamper consensus on oil output decisions.
The group is meeting virtually on Sunday.
Yemen’s presidential council head, Rashad al-Alimi, also cancelled a defence pact with the UAE, the Yemeni state news agency said, and accused the UAE in a televised speech of fuelling internal strife in Yemen with its support to the Southern Transitional Council (STC).
“Unfortunately, it has been definitively confirmed that the United Arab Emirates pressured and directed the STC to undermine and rebel against the authority of the state through military escalation,” he added.
he UAE’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Major stock indexes in the Gulf were trading down on Tuesday after the flare-up in tensions.
OFFENSIVE BROUGHT ALLIES CLOSER TO CONFRONTATION
The UAE was a member of the Saudi-led coalition battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen from 2015. In 2019 it started a drawdown of its troops in the country but remained committed to the Saudi-backed internationally recognised government.
The STC later decided to seek self-rule in the south and this month advanced in a surprise offensive against Saudi-supported Yemeni government troops, bringing the Gulf allies UAE and Saudi Arabia closer than ever to confrontation in Yemen and risking reigniting a long civil war.
The advance broke years of stalemate, with the STC claiming broad control of the south, including the strategically key province of Hadramout. Saudi Arabia had warned the STC against military moves in the eastern border province of Hadramout and sought withdrawal of its forces.
The limited airstrike early on Tuesday followed the weekend arrival of two ships from the UAE port of Fujairah on Saturday and Sunday without its authorisation, the coalition said.
After arriving in Mukalla, the vessels disabled their tracking systems and unloaded large quantities of weapons and combat vehicles to support the STC, it added.
The Saudi state news agency published a video showing a ship it identified as “Greenland” from which it said weapons and combat vehicles were unloaded, adding that it came from the Emirati port of Fujairah.
STRIKE CAUSED NO CASUALTIES, SAUDI STATE MEDIA SAY
The coalition said the Mukalla port strike caused no casualties or collateral damage, according to Saudi state media.