The Kent Global Leadership Program in Conflict Resolution hosted a discussion between Maj. Gen. Aidarous Zubaidi, vice chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership council and journalist and SIPA faculty member Peter Salisbury. Gen. Zubaidi opened the event with a fiery oration, in which he declared that Yemen had failed as a united state, and that the only solution the country's crisis is independence for the south. He cited the ineffectual government of Yemen as the reason for the inability of the country to liberate itself from the Iranian-backed Houthi insurgency, which controls much of the country, including its capital, Sana'a. Southern independence would consititue a reversion to the situation as it stood from 1967-1990, the period in which Zubaidi himself grew up.
Peter Salisbury challenged him on several points, including the contradiction between his uncompromising stance on independence and his simultaneous inclusion in the country's Presidential Leadership Council. Zubaidi also discussed the war with the Houthis, his desire for collaboration with Arab League countries, and the need for the establishment of a Palestinian state, in order to be able to recognize the state of Israel and to cooperate more openly in the struggle against their common enemy, Iran.
A transcript is available here. Video will be uploaded in the coming days.
