Yemen PM Salem bin Breik quits, replaced by foreign minister

Yemen PM tendered his resignation (Image: X)

Yemen’s Saudi-backed presidential leadership council (PLC) has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Salem bin Breik, the state news agency Saba reported on Thursday. He formally tendered his resignation, which was accepted by the council, ending his tenure amid ongoing political and security challenges in the country.

Following the move, foreign minister Shaya Mohsen Zindani was appointed Yemen’s new Prime Minister and entrusted with forming the next government, the report said. Details on the cabinet’s composition or timeline were not immediately available.

In recent months, Yemen has been at the centre of growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

A UAE-backed separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council, gained control of areas across southern and eastern Yemen in December, advancing to within reach of the Saudi border, which the kingdom considered a threat to its national security, according to a Reuters report. Saudi-backed fighters have since largely retaken those areas.

Sharp differences over a range of other issues from geopolitics to oil output have also been a cause of friction between the two Gulf powers.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE had previously worked together in a coalition battling the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen's civil war, which brought on one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.