Yemen - History
	The Republic of Yemen was formed in May 1990 by the amalgamation of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People´s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). The YAR (from 1967 also known as North Yemen) had formerly been a kingdom. When Turkey´s Ottoman Empire was dissolved in 1918, the Imam Yahya, leader of the Zaidi community, was left in control. In 1948 Yahya was assassinated in a palace coup, when power was seized by forces opposed to his feudal rule. However, Yahya´s son, Ahmad, defeated the rebel forces and succeeded his father as Imam. In 1958 Yemen and the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) formed a federation called the United Arab States, though this was dissolved at the end of 1961. The Imam Ahmad died in September 1962 and was succeeded by his son, Muhammad. Less than a week later, army officers, led by Col (later Marshal) Abdullah as-Sallal, removed the Imam and proclaimed the Yemen Arab Republic. Civil war ensued between royalist forces, supported by Saudi Arabia, and republicans, aided by Egyptian troops. The republicans gained the upper hand and Egyptian forces withdrew in 1967. In November President Sallal was deposed by a Republican Council. The People´s Republic of Southern Yemen, comprising Aden and the former Protectorate of South Arabia, was formed on 30 November 1967. Aden had been under British rule since 1839 and the Protectorate was developed by a series of treaties between the United Kingdom and local leaders. Intermittent fighting, beginning in early 1971, flared into open warfare between the two Yemens in October 1972, with the Yemen Arab Republic(YAR) receiving aid from Saudi Arabia and the People´s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) being supplied with Soviet arms. A cease-fire was arranged in the same month, under the auspices of the Arab League, and soon afterwards both sides agreed to the union of the two Yemens within 18 months. The union was not, however, implemented. Renewed fighting broke out between the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People´s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in February and March 1979, when the National Democratic Front (NDF), an alliance of disaffected YAR politicians, won the support of the PDRY and began a revolt. Later in the same month, however, at a meeting between the North and South Yemen Reads of State in Kuwait, arranged by the Arab League, an agreement was signed pledging unification of the two states. Meetings between representatives of the two countries were inconclusive until December 1981, when both sides signed a draft constitution for a unified Yemen state and established a joint YAR/PDRY Yemen Council to monitor progress towards the unification NDF forces rebelled again in 1982, but they were defeated and forced over the border into the People´s Democratic Republic of Yemen. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 proved problematic for the Government of Yemen, as the economy was heavily dependent on trade with, and aid from Iraq, and also on aid from Saudi Arabia, which was host to a considerable number of Yemeni expatriate workers. Moreover, there was evidence of widespread popular support in Yemen for the President of Iraq, Saddam Hussain. These factors determined the Government´s equivocal response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and to the subsequent developments in the Gulf region. In December 1990 Yemen assumed the chair of the UN Security Council (which rotates on a monthly basis), and the Government increased its efforts to mediate in the Gulf crisis. In January 1991 Yemen presented a peace plan in an attempt to prevent war in the Gulf; however, despite numerous diplomatic initiatives undertaken by the Government of Yemen, prior to the UN deadline of 15 January, the peace plan failed to prevent the outbreak of war in the Gulf on 16-17 January.