Secretary-General of Arab League, Nabil El-Araby announced in a press release Sunday that all Yemeni political components should renounce violence and resort to peaceful dialogue to resolve political differences. El-Araby stressed on the need to work on implementing Gulf Cooperation Council states initiative and its executive mechanisms, outputs of the comprehensive national dialogue conference, and peace and national partnership agreement, which all serve as the real basis for security and stability of Yemen. He condemned the kidnapping of Yemeni President's office director, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak and said that this is a serious incident, which targets Yemen's stability and national unity, as it undermines the political process and push the country towards further deterioration. Also, he demanded the release of bin Mubarak immediately and called on all Yemeni political forces to stand by Yemeni President, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi's efforts to complete the remaining stages of the political process, including adoption of new constitution and holding free and fair elections that fulfill Yemeni citizens' needs. The Secretary-General added that the Arab League fully supports Yemen and its efforts to build strong state institutions and achieve security and stability. In recent years Yemen has seen violent conflicts largely caused by underlying problems of unequal access to power and resources. The instability and resulting large-scale displacement, as well as weak governance, corruption, resource depletion and poor infrastructure, have hindered development in the poorest country in the Middle East. Unemployment, high food prices and limited social services mean more than 10 million Yemenis are believed to be food insecure. In 2011, the Houthis joined the protests against Yemeni President, Ali Abdullah Saleh and took advantage of the power vacuum to expand their territorial control in Saada and neighbouring Amran province. They subsequently participated in the National Dialogue Conference (NDC), which led to President Hadi announcing plans in February 2014 for Yemen to become a federation of six regions.
