Almotamar.net - The Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) Secretary General said on Wednesday that Yemen is still facing complex security threats and needs international and regional support.

"Yemen is still in dire need of support regionally and internationally. It is facing complex security challenges of the growing activities of al-Qaeda and terrorist groups as well as foreign interference in its internal affairs," Abdul-Latif al-Zayani said in his speech in the first consultative meeting of the Joint Defense Council of GCC's Defense Ministers, in the presence of US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held in Jeddah city.

Yemen needs a long-term international effort to support its developmental programs and back its armed and security forces in the fight against terror and the armed groups spreading out in the south and north of Yemen, al-Zayani said.

He pointed to the prominent role the GCC's States have played to steer Yemen away from a potential civil war, saying that the GCC-brokered initiative was an effective political solution of peaceful transfer of power backed by the international community and the UN Security Council.