Saudi, UAE renew vow to save Yemen

Dubai - The Saudi-UAE statement urged all parties to disengage and redeploy troops.

 Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pledged to keep their coalition war against Yemen's Houthi rebels together after a pullout by southern separatists.
A joint communique on Monday said both nations' "political, military, relief and development efforts" would continue. It also said the countries both rejected and condemned the "accusations and defamation campaigns targeting the UAE" since its decision in June to redeploy troops.
The Saudi-UAE statement urged all parties to disengage and redeploy troops. It reiterated a Saudi call for a summit in the kingdom to resolve the standoff while stressing the need to preserve the "stability, independence and territorial integrity" of Yemen under "the legitimate president of Yemen".
The Yemen government has said it will not join talks until separatists ceded control of sites they had seized.
The separatists welcomed the Saudi-Emirati joint statement and declared a ceasefire in oil-rich Shabwa province, where government forces had wrested control of the capital, Ataq, from the separatists on Friday. The separatists still control the key city of Aden and nearby Abyan province.
The rebels, who are demanding self-rule in the south, are part of the Saudi-led, Western-backed coalition that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to try to restore the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi which was ousted from power in the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in late 2014.
"Internal dialogue, and not fighting, is the only way to resolve internal Yemeni differences," Saudi Vice-Minister of Defence Khalid bin Salman tweeted.
"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," said Khalid.
On Monday, Hadi's forces moved towards Balhaf, site of Yemen's liquefied natural gas terminal, in Shabwa, where southern forces have a major military base, military sources said.

• Saudi Arabia