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Yemen’s internationally recognized government on Thursday welcomed new U.S.-led peace efforts, while analysts cautioned that previous diplomatic failures point to the challenges facing any renewed bid to end the three-year war.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis this week both urged a Saudi-led, U.S.-backed coalition and its Yemeni enemies—the Iran-backed Houthi rebels—to agree on a cease-fire, part of a Trump administration effort to end the conflict.
The most recent round of United Nations-led talks were scheduled two months ago, but broke down when the Houthis failed to arrive in Geneva. The coalition and its allies said the Houthis made unreasonable last-minute demands, while the Houthis said the coalition, which controls Yemen’s skies, prevented them from going.
Outcomes like that crystallize the difficulties in brokering peace in Yemen. Two U.N. envoys have come and gone after trying and failing to reach peace deals. The third, Martin Griffiths of Britain, started in February.
On Thursday, the internationally recognized government led by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi welcomed the new U.S.-led peace efforts, saying they were “consistent with the desire of the political leadership,” according to a statement carried on its official news agency.
The government, which is based in the southern port city of Aden, also listed confidence-building measures to accompany talks, including the release of prisoners, the transfer of Houthi revenues to the Aden-based central bank, opening airports and handing the Red Sea port of Hodeidah over to the U.N.
The Saudi-led coalition has yet to address the U.S. push publicly, casting a measure of doubt over whether talks can happen soon.
A senior Houthi official, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said Thursday that recent international calls for peace were positive, adding that the people making them should follow up by working to stop the bombing of Yemen, according to the website of the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV network.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, above, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have urged a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels to agree on a cease-fire.
Photo:
ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The U.S. provides aerial refueling and other limited support to the Saudi-led coalition, which has carried out a campaign of airstrikes and a ground war since 2015 to oust the Houthis from the capital, San’a. That support has come under growing scrutiny because of the civilian toll of coalition strikes, including one in early August on a school bus that killed dozens of children. The coalition later admitted it made mistakes in that strike.
The large number of factions fighting in Yemen help explain prior failures to end the war. The Houthis control territories in the northwest and San’a, but they don’t have full control over all forces that sympathize with them—a factor believed to have contributed to cease-fire violations.
Mr. Hadi, meanwhile, is being challenged in Aden by the Southern Transitional Council, which wants an independent south. Extremists with al Qaeda and Islamic State remain a presence in the country.
The U.S. push could persuade Saudi Arabia and its allies to make more concessions and speed along the peace process. But even if the Saudi-led coalition agreed to the most dramatic action it can take, ending its airstrikes and ground campaign immediately, it wouldn’t end fighting between other Yemeni factions, said Adam Baron, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“Certainly the coalition’s intervention has intensified the conflict, but if you remove everything the coalition is doing, the conflict is still there,” he said.
Reaching a lasting peace in Yemen would require complex talks and a comprehensive deal possibly involving an international peacekeeping force, he said. The investments that Saudi Arabia and its allies have made in Yemen, including scores of military bases, could also be a complicating factor in the talks.
A peace plan could start with a local cease-fire around Houthi-held Hodeidah, proceed to other agreements like a halt to Houthi missile fire on Saudi Arabia and a stop to Saudi airstrikes, and then move on to political talks and a wider cease-fire, said Joost Hiltermann, the program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group in Brussels.
“But the obstacles are many and local spoilers galore,” he said.
The international furor caused by the killing on Oct. 2 of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has only added to pressure on Saudi Arabia to extricate itself from Yemen and show that it is seeking stability in the region.
Tens of thousands of people have died in the Yemen war, according to some estimates. As the conflict grinds on, getting food, medical supplies and other humanitarian aid into swaths of the country has become difficult, leaving millions of people on the verge of famine. Many rights groups blame the Saudi coalition for helping stoke the suffering by restricting commercial traffic through Yemeni ports and airports.
Write to Asa Fitch at [email protected]
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