SANAA, Yemen/ ISTANBUL

Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC) on Friday said that it is open to any coordination or arrangements that ensure shared interests with Saudi Arabia.

In a statement, the STC said it is open to “any coordination or arrangements based on protecting the security, unity, and safety of the south, ensuring that security threats do not return, and meeting the aspirations and will of our southern people, as well as shared interests with our brothers in the kingdom.”

The statement came a day after the Saudi Foreign Ministry called for the withdrawal of the STC forces from Hadramout and Al-Mahra provinces in eastern Yemen.

The STC says successive governments in Yemen have marginalized southern regions politically and economically, and calls for their secession from the north — a claim rejected by the Yemeni government.

Meanwhile, the STC expressed surprise at what it described as an airstrike targeting positions of the Hadrami Elite Forces, which are affiliated with the council.

It warned that such attacks “will not serve any path of understanding and will not deter the people of the south from moving forward to reclaim their full rights,” without specifying who carried out the strike.

It stressed that it remains “committed to partnership with the Arab coalition countries in confronting common challenges and threats.”

Earlier Friday, unidentified airstrikes targeted STC-affiliated forces in Hadramout, the first such attack since the council’s recent military movements in eastern Yemen. No party has yet claimed responsibility for the strike.

Since Dec. 3, the STC forces have taken control of parts of Hadramout following clashes with the Hadramout Tribes Alliance and government-aligned First Military Region forces. Four days later, STC forces expanded their control to Mahra, which had been under government authority.

A joint Saudi-Emirati military team was dispatched to Aden in southern Yemen to put arrangements in place with the STC that would ensure its forces return to their previous positions outside the two provinces.

The takeover prompted mounting local and regional calls for STC forces to withdraw from Hadramout and Mahra, which together account for nearly half of Yemen’s territory, about 555,000 square kilometers.

The UN has warned that continued escalation could have serious consequences for Yemen, which is already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian and economic crises.