Saudi Arabia blackmails the STC in the Eastern Region and addresses the United States to pass the upcoming Jeddah agreement

The Saudi-backed Muslim Brotherhood announced in the city of Seiyun in Hadramawt the preparatory committee for the establishment of the unified council for the eastern "south" governorates, "in a move that the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera said is a painful blow to the Southern Transitional Council, which the Qatari channel claimed failed to control those provinces over the past years."

The southern politician and former governor of Al-Mahra, Rajeh Saeed Bakrit, announced his rejection of the efforts to divide the south, under the name of the eastern region, stressing that Al-Mahra and the Socotra archipelago will be a region within the framework of the federal state of the south, from Hoof in the east to Bab al-Mandab in the west.

Human rights activist Anis al-Shrek said that the STC is facing great Saudi pressure, as Riyadh exerts all the pressure, through projects aimed at confusing, targeting and weakening the STC, and the only beneficiaries are the Houthis and the project of the pro-Iranian group.

He hinted that Saudi Arabia does not only want to overthrow the Southern Transitional Council, but also to overthrow the south and its national cause, indicating that Riyadh wants to end the elements on which the southern national cause is based, represented in the historic declaration of disengagement on May 21, 1994.

Journalist Salah al-Saqledi attacked Saudi Arabia, accusing it of seeking to divide the south, considering what happened – the statement of the eastern region – "rudeness."

Journalist Khaled Salman said in a post on the X platform, Monday: «In the wars of representation and the manufacture of entities comes the statement of what calls itself the eastern region, which includes Hadramawt, Shabwa, Al-Mahra and Socotra, which is a paper formation that has no real tangible presence on the ground».

He added: "This statement, which talked about eastern Yemen, in spite of the language of the STC, which talks about southern Hadramawt, brings to the fore the battle to fragment the spatial unity of the south, and thus overthrow the project of restoring the state, where there is no state without Hadramawt, Shabwa and areas of population density, area and wealth."

He said – according to the Qatari newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi: «Three provinces and an island is the largest, being skinned and removed from the southern body, so that the issue of the south becomes meaningless not by the standard of the concept of the restored state, but even the entity included in the federal state».

Activist Abdullah Al-Jaidi wrote, rejecting the statement, saying in a post: "Most of those who called themselves legal persons in what they called the eastern region and signed today a statement addressed to the Leadership Council, the Kingdom, Oman and the international envoy, are advocates of "Yemenization" of their governorates, members of Sana'a parties and former officials who lost their positions and interests, and they only represent themselves."

Ain al-Mahra said that the opponents of the Southern Transitional Council returned to bet on the projects of fragmentation of the south by reviving the "eastern region" card and demanding it as a third party within the next political settlement.

The website confirmed that the eastern region paper appeared for the first time at the hands of the prominent leader of the Islah Party (Yemeni Brotherhood), Salah Batis, after the defeat of the military and security formations loyal to the party in Shabwa in August 2022, but it received little response or influence. The idea of the eastern region, which includes the governorates of Shabwa, Hadramawt, Al-Mahra, and Socotra, disappeared from events as the battle moved to Hadramawt governorate, and the opponents of the transition, led by the Brotherhood, pushed the card of the "Hadramawt National Council", which was formed about a year after the emergence of the "eastern region". However, the stumbling block that hit the Hadramawt paper, coinciding with the important political moves and steps recently taken by the STC on the southern scene, prompted perhaps to revive the eastern region paper, with Batis publishing and informing the Brotherhood a statement issued by "legal figures" from the people of the region.

Saudi Arabia, through its arms (the Yemeni Brotherhood), seeks to create an internal problem in the south, to achieve two goals, the first is to pressure the Southern Transitional Council to sign a fragile agreement with the Houthis, and the other is to create an idea that may establish a project to strip Hadramawt and Al-Mahra from the southern homeland, within a strategic project that Riyadh is working to implement to achieve an old project aimed at extending a pipeline or an artificial channel linking Saudi Arabia to the Arabian Sea.

On the other hand, a British newspaper said that Saudi Arabia is ready to support US air strikes on the Houthis, in the first announcement that may be a courtship speech to the United States of America, which Riyadh has previously called, and called on Washington to stop the escalation against the Houthis, so that the agreement expected to be signed in the coastal city does not fall in the coming days.

The London-based Times newspaper reported that Riyadh is among a number of Middle Eastern countries telling the West it supports strikes against Yemen's Houthis, whose attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have reduced commercial traffic in the vital waterway. Any action against the rebels in Yemen would coincide with U.S. attempts to prevent the spillover of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas to the rest of the region.

Blinken stressed "the importance of preventing the further spread of conflict," according to a U.S. summary of the meeting. Saudi state media reported that he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Al-Ula, north of Jeddah, on Monday, with the Saudi leader who is again pushing for an end to the war in Gaza.

In the midst of negotiations brokered by the United States and the United Nations with Saudi Arabia to end a long-running war that has devastated the country. Saudi Arabia fears that threatened military action by the United States and Britain against the Houthis could upset the talks but has come to the view that no action would make the rebels more intransigent in the negotiations.

Before the war in Gaza, Saudi Arabia was in talks with the United States to normalize relations with Israel, in exchange for American security guarantees and Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.

Since then, he has led Arab efforts to press for an end to the war. The kingdom has also been determined to extricate itself from Yemen's eight-year war while calming regional rivalries as it focuses on plans to transform itself into a hub for finance and tourism.

A source familiar with the talks said, "The day after the Houthis escape this, they enter into any bolder negotiation process."

Attempts to bring the Houthis in to stop their attacks on shipping, including promises of more aid to Yemen, have yielded no results, he said. "How can you talk to them to get out of it?" they win hard from this and believe in it. The source added that they have gained popularity in the region.

The rebels, armed by Iran, seized one ship and targeted others with drones and missiles. The attacks forced international companies including container shipping giant Maersk to avoid the corridor to the Suez Canal altogether, hampering Egypt's revenues.

The United States, Britain, France and many other countries have warned the Houthis against halting their attacks or facing military action. The work is also supported by Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Saudi Arabia has been in a more sensitive position, given its talks with the Houthis. It does not want to use its airspace for any strikes that could target commanders or military installations and equipment, according to the sources. Although a truce has been in place in Yemen since 2021, the Houthis, who previously targeted oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, have continued to engage in cross-border fire. "The Houthis are testing their borders by shooting, so I think the Saudis would like to see them get a bloody nose," said Riman al-Hamdani, a Yemeni researcher and analyst. "But they're not going to try to get involved in that."