President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi has further accused Iran of meddling in Yemen's affairs saying in a news conference with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, Thursday the Islamic republic is supporting a southern separatist group with guns.
"There are two southern factions; one of which is peaceful and the second is not," he said, pointing out the latter is using guns and backed by Iran to seek the separation of the south.
"The whole south does not seek separation. I am, the president of Yemen, come from the south and the current prime minister is from the south," he said.
Hadi, who has been reported to have arrived in Saudi Arabia on the final leg of his maiden overseas trip, has many times accused Iran of intervening in Yemen's affairs to derail the West-backed power-transfer deal, an accusation that Iran denies.
Iran summoned the Yemeni ambassador in Tehran and handed him an official letter of protest against what she called baseless accusations by Hadi during his visit to the US this week and has recently threatened to expel the envoy.
"Yemen is preparing for a comprehensive national dialogue under the transition deal. The dialogue will last five months and will address all national issues including the governance system and amending the constitution," Hadi told reporters.
In recent years, Iran has been accused of supporting the Shiite Houthi Group in the far north and when the 2011 unrest erupted, Yemeni officials accused it of backing separatists in the south.
The technical committee in charge with preparation for the dialogue has been working hard to convince all southern factions to participate in the dialogue.
Lately, it has decided to increase the number of the south representatives as experts argued the south issue should be addressed fairly if the government wants to lift the country out of its real crisis.
Meanwhile, disagreements among the southern factions, all under the southern movement, Harak, are continuing to cast a cloud on the real cause they are struggling for.