Yemeni president names new PM to end crisis

Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi Monday named former oil minister Khaled Mahfoud Bahah as the country's new prime minister in a move aimed at ending the prolonged crisis gripping the country, the official Saba news agency reported.

"Bahah is agreed upon as new prime minister by all presidential advisors in a meeting presided by President Hadi on Monday," Xinhua quoted the Saba report as stating. "The move of appointing Bahah is welcomed by all political parties with hopes to get the country out of prolonged political crisis."

The Shia Houthi group welcomed Hadi's appointment of Khaled Bahah.

"We officially welcome President Hadi's appointment of Khaled Bahah as new prime minister and we call on Hadi to issue a presidential decree on his appointment as soon as possible," Ali al-Emad, the Houthi spokesman and member of the group's political bureau, told Xinhua by phone.

Bahah is the second premier named by Hadi in a week after the Shia Houthi group rejected Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, director of the presidential office, as prime minister, further deepening a political crisis after the Houthis overran the capital Sanaa in late September.

In a presidential decree issued Oct 7, Hadi named Mubarak the new prime minister. Mubarak resigned two days later as the Houthi group vowed to organise mass protests to force his ouster.

The Houthi group alleged "foreign interference" in Mubarak's nomination and then withdrew its representative from the presidential advisory body.

Bahah, born in 1965 in Yemen's southeastern province of Hadramout, served as oil minister from March to June in 2014. He was replaced due to protests triggered by shortage of fuel and electricity, and later named as envoy to the UN.

On Sep 21, the government and the Shia Houthi group signed a ceasefire deal in Sanaa, both agreeing to stop fighting in the capital, nominate a prime minister within a week and form a technocrat government within a month.

However, the Houthi group refused to hand over towns and cities seized in previous weeks and has taken over almost all state institutions in Sanaa since then.

The deal empowers the Houthi rebels as it allows the group to play an important role in forming a cabinet and determining the future control of the army.

The peace agreement put an end to deadly clashes between the rebels and the army supported by Sunni militia, which left about 400 people dead, including about 50 civilians.