Yemeni Supreme Political Council President Mahdi al-Mashat

Sanaa received an offer from Saudi Arabia in January by which Riyadh would cover the salary of workers for an entire year in exchange for the renewal of the armistice and the resumption of the export of Yemeni oil, informed sources told Al Mayadeen on Saturday.

Sanaa "demanded that Saudi Arabia stop imposing controls on the export of Yemeni oil and enable the Yemeni people to utilize their rights to their wealth," Al Mayadeen's sources said.

"The revenues from Yemeni oil exports are sufficient to cover the salaries of all employees," Yemeni officials underlined.

Yemeni Supreme Political Council President Mahdi al-Mashat had last year sent official letters to all companies and entities concerned with the looting of Yemeni sovereign wealth to completely stop its plunder.

In turn, the Supreme Economic Committee of the Sanaa government sent a notice to all companies and entities demanding that they permanently stop looting the Yemeni sovereign wealth.

Moreover, al-Mashat has been promising workers to pay their salaries from Saudi Arabia since 2016, when the Aden government at the time, in cooperation with the Saudi-led coalition, transferred the Central Bank of Yemen from Sanaa to Aden, and stopped paying the dues of Yemeni workers.

Regarding the latest developments in negotiations between the Sanaa government and Saudi Arabia, al-Mashat revealed that the negotiations reached the talks about handing over the salaries from the oil and gas wealth to Yemen.

"Saudi Arabia expressed its willingness to pay the employees' salaries as a charity gesture, not from Yemen's oil and gas revenues," he stressed.

During a speech at the inauguration of the new academic year, al-Mashat said, "The negotiations focused on the point of handing over the salaries from our oil and gas wealth. The Saudis were ready to pay them from their funds, not from our wealth. What the Saudis want is to steal our oil and gas wealth and transfer it to the Saudi National Bank, then pretend to donate it to our people's employees, and this is what we refused."

Al-Mashat also mentioned that "the United States insisted on Saudi Arabia not to pay the dues." Sanaa advised the Americans "not to build an enemy in every Yemeni household because by preventing the payment of employees' salaries, they would have over 10 million Yemenis who resent them," he added.

He had stressed that the Yemeni people and Sanaa government would continue down the path they are heading with resilience to achieve freedom and independence, warning that "all the enemy's measures aim to multiply the suffering, and it wants to incite the society."

He cautioned the Saudi-led coalition that if they persist in their obstinacy, they would lose opportunities, knowing how much they have already lost and how much more they will lose.