Yemen’s Aden airport shuts as Saudi-UAE rift deepens

DUBAI, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Air traffic at Yemen's Aden international airport was halted on Thursday as tensions persisted between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two Gulf powers whose rivalry is reshaping war-torn Yemen.

The Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government ordered new restrictions on flights to and from the UAE, aiming to curb escalating tensions in Yemen, a Saudi source told Reuters.

But the move triggered a defiant response: Yemen’s transport minister, aligned with Yemen's southern separatists, ordered a full shutdown of air traffic rather than comply.

The Southern Transitional Council, the UAE-backed Yemeni separatist force that seized most of southern Yemen last month, blamed the closure on “sudden new regulations” Saudi Arabia sought to impose.

The UAE Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the airport closure.

The tussle is the latest in a deepening crisis in Yemen that has exposed a deep rift between the two Gulf oil powers.

Saudi Arabia this week accused the UAE of pressuring Yemen's STC to push towards the kingdom's borders and declared its national security a "red line," prompting the UAE to say it was pulling its remaining forces out of Yemen.

That followed an airstrike by Saudi-led coalition forces on the southern Yemeni port of Mukalla that the coalition saidwas a dock used to provide foreign military support to the separatists.

(Reporting by Maha El Dahan, Editing by Howard Goller)