Khaled AL-Yamani

On May 22, 1990, several influential figures within the ruling Socialist Party of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, confronted with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, chose to rush toward unification with the tribal-military regime of the Yemen Arab Republic. This abrupt pivot marked a dramatic departure from the party’s earlier ideological ambitions, particularly those of its radical wing, which once promoted sweeping revolutionary visions such as the “liberation of Oman and the Gulf” and the incorporation of North Yemen into the communist sphere.

Barely two decades after achieving independence from Britain, South Yemen found itself falling easily under northern control. President Ali Abdullah Saleh of North Yemen, settled the matter through the 1994 war, declaring the South annexed by force, while state radio triumphantly broadcast an Ayoob Tarish song about returning to Aden.

From that moment, the Southern struggle for disengagement took many forms. The first spark appeared through the peaceful Southern Movement (Al-Hirak), before the cause matured politically with the establishment of the Southern Transitional Council in 2017 as a unifying platform for southerners seeking to restore their state sovereignty.

The South’s path toward self-determination did not begin with the creation of the Southern Transitional Council; it passed through several significant milestones. The National Dialogue Conference (2013-2014) acknowledged the southern cause as a “just political issue,” recognizing that unity had been forged between two sovereign states—the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and the Yemen Arab Republic—and that this union collapsed after the 1994 war, with the ensuing policies of exclusion and dispossession. Yet this acknowledgment came late and without substantive remedies or credible guarantees. Promises of apology, reparations, and power-sharing remained mere ink on paper, locking the South inside a failing centralized state dominated by the northerners.

The proposed “federal state” appeared less a recognition of southern rights and more an attempt to contain the southern issue—especially after the decision to divide the South into two federal regions, viewed widely as a deliberate fragmentation of its identity and historic unity.

Led by Mohammed Ali Ahmed, the southern delegation rejected the National Dialogue Conference outcomes—particularly the six-region model—and instead put forward a two-region (North and South) formula, ultimately choosing withdrawal over legitimizing an arrangement that undermined the South’s right to restore its statehood.

The Houthi coup against President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in 2014 marked the final collapse of the Yemeni union. Backed by Iran, the Houthis seized state institutions in Sana’a, imposing a sectarian, hereditary model of rule that made any continued attachment of the South to such a project politically and morally untenable.

Had Hadi not been a southerner, and had it not been for the courage of southern fighters who defeated the Houthis in the Battle of Aden with Saudi and Emirati support, followed by the liberation of Mukalla from terrorist groups, Iran’s regional project likely would have absorbed the South, with Shi’i religious seminaries proliferating across the Sunni South

The liberation of Aden was a defining moment that deepened southerners’ awareness of the necessity of restoring their state. Yet Hadi failed to seize that historic opportunity, succumbing instead to the influence of political forces surrounding him in Riyadh. Political groups encouraged him to recycle the hollow rhetoric of the National Dialogue, ignoring the reality that the war had transformed the landscape and that the South had become both liberated and the only refuge of the legitimate government.

Regrettably, some southerners who replaced the original southern delegation in the Sana’a National Dialogue Council contributed to advancing the federal-regions scheme that divided the South, reinforcing the empty narrative on the future of the South in exchange for symbolic representation and short-term gains at the expense of their people’s cause.

The war rendered all previous political frameworks obsolete. Southerners moved to take control of their own affairs by establishing self-administration, despite persistent attempts at infiltration, disruption, and economic pressure aimed at weakening southern aspirations.

In April 2022, the Riyadh Conference II formally recognized the South Yemen question as part of ceasefire negotiations and granted it a dedicated negotiating framework in the peace process. Despite the familiar pattern of deferral and vague promises, the conference recognized the Southern Transitional Council as the sole legitimate representative of the southern people, and its leaders joined the Presidential Leadership Council under a parity arrangement.

Over the past three years, developments within the Southern Transitional Council have exposed numerous illusions and highlighted the strength of southern resolve—embodied by Council President Aidarous al-Zubaidi and fellow leaders Abu Zara’a al-Muharrami and Faraj al-Bahsani—who demonstrated to the international community that the southern cause is central and cannot be relegated to hotel-room bargaining or secondary files.

Today, with the Southern Transitional Council exercising effective authority on the ground, the next step is to consolidate southern self-administration and expand internal partnerships to pave the way for full independence. This requires building state institutions—executive, legislative, judicial, and service-oriented—capable of managing resources transparently, restructuring security and military forces within a unified southern framework, and incorporating political, tribal, and social actors to ensure legitimacy beyond narrow elites.

In parallel, the internal southern dialogue must deepen, translating the Southern Transitional Council’s political vision into a constitutional and legal foundation for statehood. Externally, southern political and diplomatic representation must expand in accordance with the Presidential Council’s parity principle, across all diplomatic missions, while fostering independent economic and security partnerships with regional and international actors to prepare for gradual international recognition.

Southern independence is not an emotional slogan or impulsive demand; it is a coherent political project grounded in realities on the ground, history, and popular will. And while challenges remain—from conspiracies and power rivalries to temporary interests—the moment never has been riper than today. Independence in South Yemen will increase stability, deny space to extremism, partner with the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and advance North-South relations productively.