2 southern leaders quit Yemen's national dialogue

Source : Xinhua

SANAA/ADEN, Yemen, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Two leaders of Yemen's Southern Movement announced Saturday that they would quit the ongoing national dialogue as the talks failed to reach any consensus or solutions to the secessionist issue.

"Our agenda and views were marginalized and the outcome of the ongoing dialogue will not reflect the real demand of southerners for self-determination," Ahmed bin Farid al-Suraimah, head of the committee responsible for the southern issue in the national dialogue conference (NDC), said in a statement.

Ali Ba-Odah, another pro-secession leader of the Southern Movement, also announced his withdrawal from the talks, which started on March 18 and is scheduled to run for six months.

"Withdrawal of al-Suraimah and Ba-Odah has a significant impact, but the committee of the southern issue is continuing its field work," NDC Secretary General Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak was quoted by the official Saba news agency as saying.

"Everyone knows that I sent a letter to President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi and to the presidency of the conference on April 19, in which I demanded that this dialogue should tackle the southern issue and recognize the right of southerners on self-determination, " al-Suraimah said.

Some representatives in the southern issue committee will not attend any upcoming sessions of the national dialogue in protest against the withdrawal of al-Suraimah, sources from the secessionist movement told Xinhua anonymously.

The ongoing national dialogue aims to end the split between northern and southern regions, draft a new constitution and pave the way for general elections by the end of Hadi's two-year interim term in February 2014.

However, some leaders of the Southern Movement refused to join the talks, insisting that the Sanaa government should withdraw its troops from the south first.

The roots of the southern issue date back to 1994 when the civil war between the north and the south started, four years after they united in 1990. The southerners complain of being economically and politically marginalized and discriminated against since the northern troops won the four-month war.