|
Saudi Arabia
Relations with Yemen
Yemen was the only country in the Arabian Peninsula that was
not a member of the GCC. Saudi Arabia had excluded Yemen (actually
two separate countries, the Yemen Arab Republic, YAR, or North
Yemen and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, PDRY, or
South Yemen from 1962 until unification in 1990) from GCC membership
because of its republican form of government. Historically, Saudi
relations with Yemen had been problematic. In 1934 Abd al Aziz
had sent his army into Yemen in an unsuccessful effort to conquer
the country. Although the hereditary Shia ruling family of Yemen,
concentrated in the north, never lost its distrust of the Al Saud,
it accepted military assistance from Riyadh after it was deposed
in a republican coup in 1962. For the next five years, the Saudis
supported the Yemeni royalists in their unsuccessful struggle
to regain control from the republican regime backed by Egypt.
In November 1962, Cairo tried to intimidate Riyadh into withdrawing
its support by sending Egyptian aircraft over southern Saudi Arabia
to bomb several towns, including Abha where a hospital was hit
and thirty-six patients were killed (see The Reigns of Saud and
Faisal, 1953-75 , ch. 1). Following the June 1967 Arab-Israeli
War, Saudi Arabia and Egypt resolved their differences over the
YAR; in practice this meant that Riyadh accepted the republican
government in Sanaa. Relations gradually normalized; by the late
1970s, Saudi Arabia was providing economic and military aid to
the YAR. Nevertheless, the Saudis remained suspicious of their
republican neighbor, and major outstanding issues such as the
demarcation of borders were not addressed.
Saudi Arabia's attitude toward the PDRY influenced its overall
Yemen policy. After Britain granted independence to its former
colony of Aden and the adjoining protectorate of South Arabia
in late 1967, a self-proclaimed Marxist government gained control
of the entire area. Riyadh became preoccupied with containing
the spread of Aden's Marxist ideas to the rest of the Arabian
Peninsula, especially in Oman, where a PDRY-backed insurgency
movement fought against the Al Bu Said Omani dynastic government
during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Until 1976, when diplomatic
relations with the PDRY were finally established, Saudi Arabia
actively supported efforts to overthrow the regime in Aden; Saudi
hostility did not abate after 1976 but assumed more discreet forms,
including covert aid to dissident factions within the ruling Yemeni
Socialist Party (YSP). Opposition to the unification of the YAR
and the PDRY also became a Saudi foreign policy objective, primarily
because Riyadh feared the much disliked YSP would dominate a unified
Yemen and thus acquire an even larger base from which to disseminate
its radical ideas. When unification occurred in early 1990, the
Saudis increased clandestine funding to various Yemeni groups
opposed to the YSP.
Saudi Arabia's displeasure with Yemen's unification was mild
compared with its reaction to Yemen's position in the Persian
Gulf War. Yemen adopted a neutral stance, condemning the Iraqi
invasion and annexation of Kuwait but refusing to support UN sanctions
or the use of force. Yemen's policy incensed the Saudis, who terminated
their economic assistance to the republic. In addition, Riyadh
expelled about 1 million Yemeni workers who were residing in the
kingdom in 1990. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen remained
strained in 1992.
Data as of December 1992
|
