The foreign relations of Yemen are the relationships and policies that Yemen maintains with other countries. It is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Yemen participates in the nonaligned movement. The Republic of Yemen accepted responsibility for all treaties and debts of its predecessors, the YAR and the PDRY. Additionally, Yemen acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has stressed the need to render the Middle East region free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
The Arabian Peninsula, or occasionaly Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. At 3,237,500 km2 (1,250,000 sq mi), comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
The Arab world, formally the Arab homeland, also known as the Arab nation, the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab, there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers, Kurds, Somalis and Nubians, among other groups. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council, is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council's main headquarters is located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East and North Africa together. However, it is widely considered to be a more defined and apolitical alternative to the concept of the Greater Middle East, which comprises the bulk of the Muslim world. The region has no standardized definition and groupings may vary, but the term typically includes countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the UAE, and Yemen.
The Arab states of the Persian Gulf or the Arab Gulf states refers to a group of Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Yemen is bound to the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, based on history and culture.
The dynamic between the League of Arab States and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been ambivalent, owing to the latter's varying bilateral conduct with each country of the former. Iran is located on the easternmost frontier of the Arab League, which consists of 22 Arab countries and spans the bulk of the Middle East and North Africa, of which Iran is also a part. The Arab League's population is dominated by ethnic Arabs, whereas Iran's population is dominated by ethnic Persians; and while both sides have Islam as a common religion, their sects differ, with Sunnis constituting the majority in the Arab League and Shias constituting the majority in Iran. Since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, the country's Shia theocracy has attempted to assert itself as the legitimate religious and political leadership of all Muslims, contesting a status that has generally been understood as belonging to Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, where the cities of Mecca and Medina are located. This animosity, manifested in the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, has greatly exacerbated the Shia–Sunni divide throughout the Muslim world.
The Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), located in Doha, Qatar, is a center for international and regional affairs. The center is a part of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Qatar). The center works closely with SFS-Qatar Faculty to create research and publications, organize events and manage outreach activities.
Bilateral relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been strained over several geopolitical issues, such as aspirations for regional leadership, oil export policy and relations with the United States and other Western countries. Diplomatic relations were suspended from 1987 to 1990, and they were more recently suspended from 2016 to 2023 again following certain issues like the intervention in Yemen, Iran embassy bombing in Yemen, incidents during the 2015 Hajj, the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, and the attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. However, in March 2023, after discussions brokered by China, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to reestablish relations. As of October 2024, Saudi Arabia and Iran have made efforts to improve their relations. In a meeting in Doha, Qatar, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud discussed the promotion of bilateral ties, Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, and Iran’s recent “retaliatory attacks” on Israel. The two sides emphasized the need to set aside their differences and work towards the expansion of relations.
The Peninsula Shield Force is the military arm of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It is intended to deter, and respond to military aggression against any of the GCC member countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Gerd Nonneman is a professor of international relations and Gulf studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University's campus in Qatar, where he served as dean from 2011 to 2016. Before joining Georgetown University, he held the Al-Qasimi Chair in Gulf Studies, and a chair in international relations and Middle East politics, at the University of Exeter. He is a former director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS) and of the Centre for Gulf Studies (CGS) at that university. He is also a former executive director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES).
The Summit of South American-Arab Countries is a bi-regional mechanism for cooperation and political coordination, which gathers the 22 member-States of the League of Arab States and the 12 countries of South America. Better known by its Portuguese and Spanish acronym ASPA, the bi-regional forum was created upon proposal of the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during the I ASPA Summit of Heads of State and Government, held in Brasilia, Brazil, in May 2005. Since its inception, a second ASPA Summit happened in Doha, Qatar, in March 2009, and a third Summit was held in Lima, Peru, in October 2012, after being postponed, from February 2011, due to the Arab Spring uprisings.
Mohammed Ali Mohsen al-Ahwal (12 December 1950 – 13 December 2013) was a Yemeni banker and diplomat who headed the Central Bank of Yemen from 1985 to 1995, and held various other senior government positions. He was Ambassador to Saudi Arabia between 2005 and 2012. In March 2011 he publicly sided with the youth protesters who were demanding a change of government during the Yemeni Revolution.
Oman–Yemen relations refer to bilateral relations between the southern Peninsular Arab nations of Oman and Yemen. The two countries share a 294 km border. Both Oman and Yemen were part of the Persian Empire, and later the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates. Yemen has an embassy in Muscat. Oman has an embassy in Sana'a. Both countries are members of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. The struggle also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in West, North and East Africa, South, Central, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
The Saudi–led intervention in Bahrain began on 14 March 2011 to assist the Bahraini government in suppressing an anti-government uprising in the country. The intervention came three weeks after the U.S. pressured Bahrain to withdraw its military forces from the streets. As a decision by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the intervention included sending 1,000 (1,200) troops with vehicles from Saudi Arabia at the invitation of the Al-Khalifa ruling family, marking the first time the GCC used such a collective military option for suppressing a revolt.
The Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Unity Forum, known as the Gulf Arab Unity Forum, is the first of its kind, meant to create a central coalition of Gulf unity in the Arabian Peninsula. This forum is associated with numerous controversial topics and people regarding terrorism and terror financing.
The Qatar–Saudi Arabia diplomatic conflict refers to the ongoing struggle for regional influence between Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), both of which are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It is sometimes called the New Arab Cold War. Bilateral relations have been especially strained since the beginning of the Arab Spring, that left a power vacuum both states sought to fill, with Qatar being supportive of the revolutionary wave and Saudi Arabia opposing it. Both states are allies of the United States, and have avoided direct conflict with one another.
Nawaf Essam Ahmad Obaid is a Saudi Arabian political scientist, and a former foreign policy & media advisor. He currently serves as the CEO of the Essam & Dalal OBAID Foundation (EDOF) in Geneva, a Commissioner at the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) in The Hague, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London.
Dr. Ebtesam Al-Ketbi is a political scientist who founded and presides over The Emirates Policy Center think tank.
