Alwaght- Alwaght has conducted an interview with Ahmed al-Jaishi, the press secretary of Yemen’s General People’s Congress party on an array of issues including the surprising Russia's Security Council stances on Yemen, founding the Yemeni Supreme Political Council and its duties, the intra-Yemeni negotiations, and the efforts of the UN envoy to Yemen.
Alwaght: The delegation representing Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, the resigned president of Yemen, described forming Supreme Political Council as a "new coup" against the government in Yemen. What do you think and how do you observe the new council?
Al-Jaishi: In fact, there is a constitutional vacuum in Yemen like what pushed Hadi to violate the Persian Gulf Arab states' initiative which made him a temporary president for only two years but he extended his presidency two more years. He then resigned and later claimed he was president of the country. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia and asked Riyadh to intervene militarily in Yemen, although the aggression was preplanned and actually Hadi was an excuse. We have been fighting the Saudi aggression for nearly two years without any support from any side.
Then the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council suspended the Yemeni constitution and replaced it with its own laws. After a year and a half of epic resistance and making gains on the ground against the aggressors, and after a year and a half of administration of the state organizations according to revolutionary methods, it is now our right to withhold the constitutional legitimacy from those who claim it while they are abroad. We add it to our institutions inside Yemen. We are on the ground in Yemen and we are managing the government institutions. The nation needs army, needs police, needs help and security. It is us who administrate all these works on the ground. Now it is time to fill the vacuum as the country lacks constitution. We have the right to do so because we are resisting the Saudi war, we are protecting the civilians. We are managing everything. So we need a constitutional organization. The Supreme Political Council is the highest authority in the country that controls the army and administrates the country. This order produces new government for Yemen. We would reactivate the parliament and the constitution. The government would present a new roadmap that addresses the present conditions of the country. This is highly needed.
The Supreme Political Council was founded after Ansarullah, General People's Congress, and other allies agreed to continue resistance. The constitution contains the instructions to face foreign aggression, and we are following them. We are activating the government's duties on the case. We try to make order. We arrest the violators of law and we seize their weapons for public security.
Alwaght: What is exactly the aim of the Supreme Political Council?
Al-Jaishi: To fill the vacuum. This is our essential aim. They claim that they are legal representatives of the government while they are out of the country but we are administering the country. We even pay salaries of the government workers in places that are captured by the Saudi-led occupation in south of the country, even in Sana'a the capital and other places in Yemen. We are bearing the brunt but they claim they are legitimate officials of Yemen while they are living abroad.
Alwaght: The reports suggest that the Yemeni negotiating sides agreed to continue the UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait. Why Ansarullah has agreed to do so while so far they yielded no results?
Al-Jaishi: This is inaccurate. We made our stances clear more than once. If we had agreed to the UN envoy's suggestions, we signed the agreement deal he presented. But we didn't. Now we have new conditions and new equations. We never again accept UN-sponsored negotiations. Now we only talk to Saudi Arabia as an aggressive country. Furthermore, we wouldn't accede to negotiations with Hadi or his supporters, however, we would not oppose presence of other sides as witnesses. Additionally, we wouldn't agree with any regional or international sides while they caused destruction of our country. These are the pathways we would follow from now on. Any upcoming negotiations would be with the Supreme Political Council as the only legitimate authority of Yemen.
Alwaght: What do you think about the surprising change of the Russian stance which we have observed in the recent session of the Security Council that discussed the Yemeni crisis? Is it stable and real or it is a simple support for the stance of Iran as Moscow’s ally?
Al-Jaishi: I think that further changes would happen not only to Russian standing but also to stances of the countries supported Riyadh in its war on Yemen. Because anybody that holds the ground would imposed his stance on the others. Today we are imposing our will and equations on the whole world. We are facing the aggression. We lacked support of some friend countries because the constitution is suspended in the country. But we are reactivating it. We are restoring legitimacy to the nation. We impose the popular legitimacy of Yemen on the international organizations. From now on we only negotiate with Saudi Arabia while considering it a hostile country.
