8 May 2023: the political track in NRM hosted Mr. Saleh Alnoud, spokesman for the Office of the Transitional Council (STC) as well as Mr. Qassem Daoud, head of the Aden Monitoring, Studies, and Training Center, to highlight the Yemeni scene and the challenges and opportunities for a solution, and especially to talk about the Southern Consultative Meeting that has just concluded. The meeting was moderated by Dr. Shadi Bassura, head of NRM’s foreign relations track.
In his interference, Mr. Qassem Daoud reviewed the outcomes of the Southern consultative meeting. He said that the meeting was a lesson for adopting dialogue as a method to resolve differences, and considered it a positive step that brought together multiple groups. He said that this meeting is an achievement for all democratic forces in the North and South, and stressed that dialogue and politics are the best way out of the war. He added that such consultative meetings are vital because, unfortunately, the traditional political parties have become part of the problem and have aged prematurely.
For his part, Mr. Saleh Alnoud said that the Southern Issue is as old as the Unity itself, that the Southern Consultative Meeting is a continuation of many bilateral dialogues, and that the participation of the STC in them is interim in order to obtain real reconciliation and partnerships, and that the continuation of work with the legitimate government is subject to the availability of guarantees. Alnoud stated that the goal in the end is to restore the Southern State, as the suffering caused an aversion to the Unity. He hinted that the marginalization of the Southern Issue dominated the National Dialogue in 2013 in its true sense, an attempt to disperse the South and that the major disaster was the invasion of the South in 2015. Alnoud warned of the danger of the continued seizure of power in the North by Houthis and the possibility of them trying to invade the South again.
The meeting concluded with a discussion where the attendees stressed the importance of the Southern Consultative Meeting as long as the dialogue is adopted to resolve differences, build political reconciliation, and renounce violence, but some warned of the danger of the STC claiming to represent the politically diverse South between supporters of the STC and others who believe in the Unity, and some considered what the STC is doing contrary to previous agreements it signed, including the Riyadh Agreement and its participation in the Presidential Leadership Council.