Yemen: Separatists object to leader’s delaying their cause

CAIRO (AP) — Yemen’s southern separatists have slammed statements by their ally, the head of Yemen’s presidential council, in which he said that now is not the right time to discuss southern independence. It comes as Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition fighting for Yemen’s internationally recognized government that includes the separatists, and their rivals the Houthi rebels are in back-channel talks on the country’s wider war. The separatists enjoy loyalty through much of southern Yemen, and have repeatedly pushed to break up Yemen into two countries, as it was between 1967 and 1990.