Air and sea ports in the Yemeni city of Aden have resumed activities a day after the country’s President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi reached an agreement with Houthi Ansarullah fighters.
The Yemeni authorities’ Thursday decision to reopen the ports came after Hadi and the Ansarullah fighters struck a deal aimed at ending recent tensions in the country.
“The decision to re-open Aden’s port and airport was made by the (city’s) Higher Security Committee,” an unnamed top local official said.
Security authorities had closed all crossings into the southern port city on Wednesday following days of violent clashes between the Ansarullah fighters and government forces in the capital, Sana’a. The crossings have been opened as the unrest in the area has come to an end.
Earlier this week, the Ansarullah fighters surrounded the presidential palace in the capital and besieged Hadi’s house.
The nine-point deal stipulates the withdrawal of the armed Ansarullah fighters from the presidential palace and calls for the release of Yemeni Presidential Chief of Staff Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak, who has been in the Houthis’ custody since Saturday.
It also includes a clause that would respond to the Ansarullah fighters’ demands to amend the constitution and expand the Houthis’ role in parliament as well as state institutions.
Yemen’s Shia Houthi movement draws its name from the tribe of its founding leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi.
The movement played a key role in the popular revolution that forced former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years of rule.
