Yemen’s Aden airport shuts as Saudi-UAE rift deepens

DUBAI: Air traffic at Yemen’s Aden international airport was halted on Thursday as tensions persisted between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two Gulf powers whose rivalry is reshaping war-torn Yemen.

The Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government ordered new restrictions on flights to and from the UAE, aiming to curb escalating tensions in Yemen, a Saudi source told Reuters.

But the move triggered a defiant response: Yemen’s transport minister, aligned with Yemen’s southern separatists, ordered a full shutdown of air traffic rather than comply.

The Southern Transitional Council, the UAE-backed Yemeni separatist force that seized most of southern Yemen last month, blamed the closure on “sudden new regulations” Saudi Arabia sought to impose.

Read more: UAE to pull remaining forces from Yemen in crisis with Saudi Arabia

The UAE Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the airport closure.

The tussle is the latest in a deepening crisis in Yemen that has exposed a deep rift between the two Gulf oil powers.

Saudi Arabia this week accused the UAE of pressuring Yemen’s STC to push towards the kingdom’s borders and declared its national security a “red line,” prompting the UAE to say it was pulling its remaining forces out of Yemen.

That followed an airstrike by Saudi-led coalition forces on the southern Yemeni port of Mukalla that the coalition said was a dock used to provide foreign military support to the separatists.