Yemeni Party Officials Meet Largely Criticized Syria’s Assad

Source :  Yemen Post

Muhammad Al-Zubairy, the current rotating president of the Joint Meeting Parties JMP, Yemen’s main opposition bloc which is one of the two partners in the West-backed political transition, met on Thursday with Syrian president Bashar Assad, Syrian media outlets reported. The Syrian reports said Assad met with Al-Zubairy in his capacity as the secretary general of the Baath Party in Yemen, not as the reporting president of the JMP in Yemen. The official website of the Yemeni Baath Party covered the meeting as well saying it dealt with the situations in the Arab region, especially the latest developments in Syria and Yemen. At the talks, that came amid continuous popular uprising against the Assad regime in Syria, there was a focus on the importance to develop the role of the Baath Party in line with the latest developments in the region, the website said. “The talks stressed the importance to stick to Arabism and its thought to face external projects targeting the Arab nation and its forces,” according to the website. The Syrian-led Baath Party has branches in several Arab countries since it is seen as one of the most important groups serving Arabism and the Arab and Muslim issues. The Assad regime has been widely criticized by regional and world countries for the deadly crackdown against the civilians who have been struggling for more than two years to demand change and the departure of the regime. The popular uprising, which started as part of the peaceful protests sweeping the region or what has been knows as the Arab Spring, has become an armed struggle against the Syrian regime, which international reports said has killed more than 90.000 civilians and displaced millions since the unrest started. Al-Zubairy was elected the rotating president of the six-party opposition bloc JMP in Yemen early this month. The JMP was the second partner to sign the GCC-brokered power-transfer deal which forced Yemen’s former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh to relinquish power after the mass protests in 2011. It six-party bloc holds half of the power-sharing government under the deal. The meeting between Yemeni party officials with Assad has drawn public criticism, with some saying political forces especially those which were part of the popular uprising against the former regime in Yemen should not meet Syrian officials or show support to the Syr