SANAA — Yemen’s president has ordered the reinstatement of hundreds of senior army and intelligence officers sacked after a 1994 civil war, to hasten reconciliation talks aimed at ending years of political turmoil in the U.S.-allied country.

The officers are from the restive south of the Arabian peninsula country, which lost a 1994 civil war with the north, after making a failed bid to break away from what many southern secessionists called political domination by Sanaa.

The move by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, reported by state news agency Saba, follows a decision last week to set up a $1.2 billion fund to finance the restoration of jobs to tens of thousands of southern Yemenis unemployed since the civil war.

Saba published a series of presidential decrees late on Wednesday, Sept. 11, listing hundreds of officers from the rank of captain and up as reinstated immediately. Many were promoted.

The decrees covered officers from the armed forces, the Interior Ministry and the intelligence service.