A retired Saudi Arabian general is engaged in a Twitter campaign which calls clearly for an independent South Yemen. Anwar Eshki is now the head of the Middle East Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies in Riyadh and has also said that South Yemen should be part of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

“I pray to God to bless the south, which spread Islam in East Asia and Africa, with independence and prosperity in this world and a sky-sized and earth-sized Heaven in the Hereafter,” he wrote.

Addressing the Yemenis living in the south of the country, the ex-general added, “Southerners! We are pushing your vehicle, which has been disabled. If God fixes it, do not leave us and go, but let us go together to the GCC.”

He called upon “the north” [of Yemen] to join the south in this move, “If we can free ourselves from the Persians who colonised it before Islam.” This was an overt attack on Iran, which is believed widely to offer military and other support to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Eshki ended his message by claiming, “We are heading to a broader unity that can only be left by unjust or hypocrite people.”

This is not the first time that the Saudi figure has called for the secession of southern Yemen, in parallel with similar calls from UAE political and media figures, who have been encouraging the Yemenis to take this path.