Yemeni-Saudi relations

Historically, Saudi relations with Yemen have been problematic. In 1934, Abdul-Aziz II sent his army to Yemen with the goal of conquering the country, but was defeated. In 1962, the Yemeni army, with the support of tanks, stormed the royal palace of Dar al-Bashair in Sana'a . During the coup in Yemen , the new imam Mohammed al-Badr was overthrown, having come to power a week earlier, after the death of his father, and the Yemen Arab Republic was proclaimed. Over the next five years, Saudi Arabia supported the Yemeni royalists (even though they belonged to the Shiites ) in their unsuccessful struggle to overthrow the republican regime supported by Egypt . In November 1962, the Egyptians launched an attack on the Saudis, Egyptian military aircraft bombed the south of Saudi Arabia, including the city of Abha , where 36 patients died as a result of the bombing in a hospital ^[2] .

In June 1967, after the end of the Six Day War , the Saudis and Egyptians resolved their differences over the Yemeni Arab Republic . In practice, this meant that Riyadh recognized the republican government in Sana'a . Relations gradually normalized, and in the late 1970s, Saudi Arabia had already begun to provide economic and military assistance to Yemen. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia was still suspicious of its southern neighbor, and the main unresolved issue of demarcating the border was not considered ^[3] .

However, in 2000, an agreement was signed on passing the land and sea borders between Saudi Arabia and Yemen on the basis of the 1934 peace treaty. The document officially secured the territories of Asir , Jizan and Najran for Saudi Arabia, and desert territories in Hadramaut left for Yemen. In 2006, an agreement was signed on the final demarcation of these sections of the border. However, controversial issues remained regarding some sections of the Shabwa oil region near Marib , near the Red Sea coast, as well as in the “triangle” region, where the borders of Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman converge.

In 2014, Yemen faced the biggest crisis in decades, the country's government was overthrown by Husit rebels, which led to the invasion of several countries led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen . The fighting led to devastating consequences and humanitarian disaster. Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula captured part of the coastal territory of Yemen. The United Nations has described the humanitarian situation in Yemen as serious and complex compared to Iraq , South Sudan and Syria . The fighting, as well as the blockade of air and sea communications of Yemen by Saudi Arabia in order to prevent the supply of weapons, put the population of Yemen on the brink of starvation ^[4] .