Emirati forces positioned in Yemen will not be leaving the country, they will just be re-deployed, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates said Monday.
“Just to be clear, the UAE and the rest of coalition are not leaving Yemen. While we will operate differently, our military presence will remain,” Anwar Gargash wrote in an opinion piece for the Washington Post.
The UAE has pulled some troops from the southern port of Aden and Yemen's western coast, areas where the Gulf state has built up and armed local forces who are leading the battle against the Iran-aligned Houthi group along the Red Sea coast.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the Western-backed Sunni Muslim coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognized government ousted from power in the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in late 2014.
Stating that it is time to step up efforts for a political solution, Gargash added that the Houthis should consider this move as a “confidence-building measure” to help end the war.
The conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed millions to the brink of famine, is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but the Houthis deny being puppets of Tehran and say their revolution is against corruption.
