The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) came into the world map as an independent state with the end of British rule in South Arabia, on November 30th, 1967.
On that day, the governmental power over a 360,133 km2 territory and its capital Aden was transferred to the National Liberation Front (NLF), a guerrilla group that emerged in 1963 out of North Yemeni and Egyptian assistance, in support to the opponents of the recently established Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) in the North of Yemen.
With the proclamation of independence, the NLF established a one-party system, and built a communist government, effectively making South Yemen the only Arab communist country.
In its 30 years of existence, until the unification with the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) in the North on May 22nd , 1990, the PDRY established a network of foreign relations, both with governments and revolutionary forces against said government.
With today’s Yemen political landscape being redrawn as the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the internationally recognised government Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) contest each other’s sovereignty, the implications of said foreign relations network continue to shape Yemen’s international positioning.
The PDRY & Arab states
The main foreign policy element that characterised South Yemen’s relations with the Arabian Peninsula and Arab states was the extent reached by its revolutionary solidarity; as Fred Halliday in his book “Revolution and foreign policy: the case of South Yemen, 1967-1987” puts it: “Given its exposed strategic position, its economic vulnerability and limited resources, the extent of its persistence in such conflict with its neighbours and in a revolutionary foreign policy was striking”.
And, in fact, the PDRY, believing that its own revolution could be made a model for others, openly kept supporting oppositions in North Yemen and Oman, and the Palestinian resistance. This, in turn, meant that South Yemen was in conflict with the governments of its bordering states: North Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Starting from the latter, political controversies with Saudi Arabia ran deep: neither recognised the other’s legitimacy nor accepted the other’s international orientation. Nothing was further away from Saudis principle of monarchical rule and traditional interpretation of Islam than the PDRY’s strong solidarity with liberation movements against imperialist regimes. In fact, the two clashed mainly on the evolving state of affairs in countries in the region they shared an interest in – primarily North Yemen and Oman. Because of this, Riyadh not only refused to recognise the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen as a state, but it also offered asylum to South Yemeni in exile and transformed them into an active opposition movement by providing them with radio facilities.
Both sides’ failure to prevail and succeeding in reaching their international diplomatic goals brings us to March 9th, 1976, the day when the two states announced that they had the “’intention to establish normal relations between them on the basis of Arab fraternity, good-neighbourliness, the unity of destiny and non-interference in internal affairs”. In practical terms, this translated into fighting and propaganda activities being ceased and economic agreements being made, but, crucially, it did not translate into recognition of each other’s territorial sovereignty, nor did it make their conflicting alliances – with the URSS and the USA – matter less. Nonetheless, this moment laid down guidelines for future interactions.
Oman, on the other side, was the greatest single commitment to encouraging revolution in another state undertaken by the Aden government. From 1965 to at least 1981, Dhofari rebel movement – an exile group from the southern region of Oman that the PDRY claimed to be part of historical Yemen – fought “to work towards the unification of the revolutionary tool of the popular masses in the Occupied Arabian Gulf as the healthy and revolutionary prelude to the unity of the area”. The terms Occupied Arab Gulf included, aside from Oman, Trucial Oman (later the United Arab Emirates), Bahrain and Qatar.
The PDRY provided the group with military aid and base facilities, granted training, schools and hospital facilities, among others, and became an amplifier of guerilla propaganda to the rest of the world via radio, much like Saudi Arabia was doing with the exile population. South Yemeni’s sustained support for Omani guerrillas resulted in strained relations with the conservative monarchies of the Peninsula.
The continuous but intermittent fighting ended on March 8th, 1976, when a cease-fire was agreed upon, preceding by only one day the agreement between Saudi Arabia and South Yemen. This date coincidence was the origin of the unofficial reporting that a ceasefire was a condition for Saudi recognition of the PDRY.
In the years that followed, PDRY-Oman relations remained peaceful but static, with both sides criticising the other for the Soviet and American, respectively, military facilities on their soil. Although it stopped presenting the Dhofari liberation movement as the only legitimate government of Oman, the PDRY kept supporting it until 1982, maintaining its offices in Aden, its facilities near the Omani border and access to the radio. That year Oman and South Yemen reached an agreement to halt interference in internal affairs and antagonistic media campaigns, and to exchange diplomatic representation.
Last, but not least, is the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), the PDRY’s rival missing half. The call for Yemeni unity dates back to the 1950s, but the path to get there involved a lot of back and forth between unity and conflict, evolving foreign and domestic policy’s calculations and a number of failed commitments to a united constitution.
After PDRY’s gained independence, both Yemens initially appealed to the notion of one single Yemen country. But quite soon both started using this narrative to their advantage to legitimize interference on the other and strengthen their own position. The YAR was the first one to step back from the rhetoric of formal fraternity: in 1969 it blamed the South for the failure to bring about Yemeni unity, and it accused it of being responsible for border attacks and arm trade to opponents to the YAR. The South responded by describing the North as “feudalist and clannish” in a public statement, and turned the allegation of interference to support rebel groups back to the sender.
The year after both sides’ accusations of backing rebel groups in the other’s territory became reality, as both sides presented their own new constitutions: if the South expressed that unity entailed expanding its socialist system to the North, the latter established a “Consultative Council” implying that it would be a representative body for the whole of Yemen.
In this context in 1972 the two Yemens waged war against each other. The YAR’s arms supply was openly donated by Saudi Arabia and Libya, the PDRY’s by the URSS. With the Arab League’s mediation, a ceasefire was reached. It was to become one first of two occasions – the second being in 1979 – in which the presidents of both states signed an agreement to implement unity: both times one state seized the opportunity to use force to achieve unity by suppressing the other – the YAR in 1972 and the PDRY in 1979. Both times the ceasefire failed to create an environment for unity to be discussed.
It took six years after the PDRY’s declaration of independence, in 1973, for its president to visit Sana’a, the YAR’s capital. Between this moment and 1977, relations were stalling, not making any more forward nor backwards. Internal politics, on the contrary, was very much alive and dynamic.
Tensions within the YAR grew as a more socialist-leaning force, the National Democratic Front, gained space in the political field. One part of the party tolerated its existence, the other did not. Adding a strong opposition to the possibility of building a more coordinated Yemeni foreign policy in regard of the Red Sea to the mix, we come to the assasination of YAR’s president in October 1977.
His death sparked another round of political conflict, which culminated into the 1979’s inter-Yemeni war. Despite the ceasefire signed in Kuwait, fighting continued until the spring of 1982 as the PDRY kept backing the National Democratic Front in the North. Only in that year did the PDRY recognise the North Yemeni government as the sole legitimate interlocutor within the YAR.
From there on, relations were peaceful, and as oil was discovered along the border between North and South, the two countries decided to collaborate: they established a now called Joint Investment Area – a 2,200km2 demilitarised zone dedicated to exploration – and formed the Yemeni Company for Investment in Mineral and Oil Resources.
On these premises in November 1989, both Yemens agreed to draft a unity constitution, and establish more joint administrative bodies. The year after Yemen was one at last.
The PDRY & communist states
While classified as a non-aligned country in the Cold War context, the PDRY congress had a clear view on its contemporary international scenario. It believed that at the core lied a conflict between capitalism and colonialism on one side and socialism and national liberation movement on the other, affirming that: “the existence and growth of the socialist camp constituted a firm ground, a rear support to the liberation movements to enable them to steer towards socialism in favour of the oppressed masses”. For this reason, it urged for “interaction and opening to all socialist experiences and regimes in the world”. In PDRY’s foreign policy, this interaction and opening reached all the way to South Africa and Vietnam, in support of anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist movement. Perhaps the most evident instance of this statement is the PDRY’s constant pledge of support for the Palestinian cause.
The commitment to socialism became even more evident after on June 22nd, 1969 a new government replaced the former via a coup d’etat. From that moment onwards, the “guiding principle” of foreign policy became the improvement of relations with the socialist countries and, specifically, with the URSS. A second coup d’etat in 1978, succeeded thanks to Soviet and Cuban forces intervention, and resulted in a significantly closer relationship between Aden and Moscow.
Unsurprisingly, then, in 1979 the two countries signed a “20- Year Friendship Pact” following the lines of similar agreement the Soviet Union had with other developing countries – Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique, Iraq, India, Ethiopia and Vietnam. The pacts affirmed that South Yemen and the URSS “will continue to develop cooperation in the military field in the interests of strengthening their defence capacity”. In fact, the URSS soon became the main source of arms for South Yemen, not including the 1000 Soviet military advisers who were present in 1985. Simultaneously, 500 Cubans were in charge of training militia forces and East Germans took on the role of advisers of the internal security system.
Beyond military support, in the economic realm in 1982 the URSS was reported as South’s Yemen single largest creditor, and in the political realm the Yemeni Socialist Party’s (YSP) founding in 1978 and its activities were largely brought about through Moscow. According to Soviet statements, cooperation with YSP’s had the objective “of informing each other on mutual experiences with party-organizational work, party control of economic construction and political-educational activity with the masses and to cooperate in developing contacts between trade unions, youth, women’s, and other social organizations, friendship societies, and peace and solidarity committees”.
All these connections, for Moscow, fulfilled three goals. Once, strategic access to the strait of Bab Al-Mandab, between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, for military actions and monitoring of Western operations. Second, the PDRY proved to be one of the few to show continuous unwavering diplomatic support for URSS in the international area, including its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Lastly, as the only Arab state with a Marxist regime, South Yemen was perceived by the URSS as a role model for others to follow. With this ambition, in the years to follow economic aid to South Yemen increased and South Yemen’s imports from non-socialist countries decreased, in an attempt to seal PDRY’s international position.
Aside from the URSS, East Germany also played a role in South Yemen. In 1970, its “low profile strategy” with the PDRY was most outspoken in the declared effort to help South Yemen in drafting a constitution and designing the state and juridical apparatus, to the extent that the constitution of the two countries is shockingly similar. The cooperation then expanded to the health and industrial sector and, most importantly, to education: “exchange” opportunities were created for PDRY’s students in East Germany. All well, until the so-called “January crisis” of 1986, when an internal conflict with the Yemeni Socialist party escalated into a brief, but bloody, civil war. The opposing faction’s leader, and numerous key figures in the YSP were exiled or killed, amidst the turmoil both the party and the country were left with few international supporters, even East Germany turned its back to its former ally. Nonetheless, it was only in 1990 that the last East German security and intelligence advisers left the country, due to South Yemen refusal to help pay their salaries.
The PDRY & capitalist states
South Yemen was immediately recognised by the major capitalist countries – Britain, the USA, France, West Germany and Japan – and just a month after its independence it entered the UN. In 1969 it also joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Nonetheless, while trading with each other, the relations with these countries were ambiguous; to the eyes of the so-called West, South Yemen was a concern for its policy of supporting rebellion militias in the region of the Red Sea and Arabian Peninsula and its alliance with the URSS.
And so, as a direct consequence of the increased closeness to the URSS in 1969 and Aden’s recognition of East Germany, West Germany broke off relations. Then it was Aden to cut ties with the USA, and foreign banks and insurance companies were nationalised.
Nationalisation was one of the reasons why in the first half of the 70s, the PDRY adopted a different stance. Not needing to frame a campaign against foreign capital anymore, and lacking aid, the PDRY revised its policies towards more consolidation. This change of heart was left, basically, unreciprocated: the fear of antagonising Iran and Saudi Arabia, major regional powers and enemies of South Yemen, and the latter’s unchanged commitment to revolution in Arabia, meant that the capitalist countries were not prone to solidify relations.
Back to today
After a successful Saudi-backed offensive by the Yemeni government – Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) – in late 2025 against the Southern Transitional Council (STC), in January 2026 the Council announced its dissolution. Yet, the statement was later defined as “null and void” by the STC as, according to them. It had been made “under coercion and pressure”. The PLC started regaining control of the south-eastern regions, while many Yemenis took the streets of Aden in support of the secessionist group.
The STC came to being in 2017 to group those who urged for a restoration of South Yemen independence and with UAE support it took control of Aden and other regions in the South, against the Yemeni government.
Now, as Saudi-Emirati relations deteriorate, the Yemeni government is also confronted with the Houthi presence in the north-west of the country, including the capital Sana’a. On one side, the Houthis affirm that the PLC advances foreign power interests and criticises Riyadh’s history of intervention in the country. On the other, the government accuses the Houthis of setting an Iranian agenda.
And just like that, history repeats itself, with reciprocal accusation and foreign politics shaping the prospect of Yemeni unity, still yet to be achieved to this day.
