Yemen’s President Names UN Envoy Khaled Bahah as Prime Minister
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Yemen’s president appointed Khaled Bahah, the impoverished Arab country’s envoy to the United Nations, as prime minister, in a move welcomed by the Houthi movement, a Shiite Muslim group that now controls the capital, Sana’a.
An aide to President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi said Bahah’s name had been among three proposed last week by the Houthi group after they rejected the earlier appointment of Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak as prime minister.
Bahah’s appointment is expected to help ease a political crisis triggered by the Houthis’ capture of Sana’a last month.
“We believe he (Bahah) is the right person (for the job),” Abdelmalek al-Ejri, a member of the Houthi political bureau, was quoted by Reuters as saying. “His appointment will help the country overcome the difficulties it is going through.”
Suicide bombers targeting the Houthis and an army camp killed at least 67 people last Thursday as Mubarak was forced to step down as prime minister after just hours in the job.
Bahah, who was born in 1965 and educated at India’s Pune University, served as oil minister before being appointed as Yemen’s envoy to the United Nations.
His appointment comes under a power-sharing deal signed last month by the Houthis and other major political parties at Hadi’s presidential palace. The deal aims to bring the Houthis and the wing of a separatist group into a more inclusive government.
