RIYADH — Saudi Arabia on Tuesday reiterated its keenness for Yemen’s stability and its return to Arab fold.

The Council of Ministers said the Kingdom hoped that the uprising by the Yemeni people against the Iran-aligned Houthis would “help rid Yemen of repression, death threats, explosions and seizure of private and public property.”

The Cabinet expressed the Kingdom’s keenness to protect Yemeni territories, security, identity, territorial integrity and social fabric.

Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Abul Gheit on Tuesday condemned the killing of Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh by Houthi rebels, saying it illustrated their “criminal nature”.

He warned that Saleh’s killing threatens an “explosion in the security situation” in the war-ravaged country.

Saleh’s “assassination and the way it was done reveals to everyone the criminal nature bereft of humanity of that militia which constitutes the main reason for the devastation that has ravaged the country,” Gheit said in a statement.

Saleh, who had ruled Yemen for three decades, joined forces with the Houthis in 2014 when they took control of large parts of the country, including the capital.

But that alliance unravelled over the past week, with dozens reported dead in clashes as Saleh reached out to the Coalition fighting to restore legitimacy in Yemen. — SG