Saudi Pressure to Annex Hadramout
On Thursday, Saudi Arabia began exerting pressure to officially annex Hadramout to it, the oil-rich and strategically located province in eastern Yemen.
Exclusive – Al-khabar Al-Yemeni:
Saudi intelligence-affiliated experts circulated images of a map officially including Hadramout as part of Saudi Arabia.
The tweeters are trying to urge the Hadramis to declare the annexation of the governorate, which constitutes a third of the area of Yemen, to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi campaign coincided with the continuation of negotiations sponsored by it since a few days ago in Riyadh to determine the fate of Hadramout, and the campaign is an extension of previous statements by Saudi military officials that the province is part of the kingdom, most notably Sultan Al-Baqami’s statement, commander of support and reinforcement in the coalition, who confirmed during his recent visit to Mukalla that his country would not relinquish Hadramout, citing the tribal and social relations between the province’s tribes and Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi moves, in terms of timing, refer to Riyadh’s attempt to push Hadrami figures loyal to it to officially adopt annexing Hadramout to it, or at least adopt clauses in the Hadrami charter, which is expected to come out of the Riyadh conference and pave the way for its annexation.
Hadramout is one of the areas located in eastern Yemen that Saudi Arabia has been coveting for decades, where it previously seized a large area of the province’s desert lands in Al-Wadi’a by deploying Salafist factions loyal to it known as “Al-Watan.”
The new deployment brings Saudi Arabia closer to annexing the province that overlooks the Arabian Sea.