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Diplomatic pressure from the United States and Britain, Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms suppliers, abruptly intensified on Wednesday for a cease-fire in the Yemen war, the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster.
The calls for a halt to the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict, made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, came against the backdrop of rising global criticism of Saudi Arabia, which has led a bombing campaign that is a major cause of civilian deaths and destruction in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.
“It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction,” Mr. Pompeo said in a statement on the State Department website.
[Read our story about the Yemen famine’s impact.]
The push for a cease-fire comes as relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States have cooled in the month since a prominent dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, was killed in Turkey by a team of Saudi operatives with close ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and the architect of the Yemen war.
The Saudi monarchy has denied responsibility for the Khashoggi killing in a story that has changed at least five times since he disappeared Oct. 2. President Trump has described the monarchy’s explanations for what befell Mr. Khashoggi as the world’s “worst cover-up.”
The Yemen war has killed at least 10,000 people. Repeated efforts by United Nations diplomats to broker a truce between the chief antagonists, a Saudi-led military coalition and Yemen’s Houthi insurgents, have failed.
Mr. Hunt, Britain’s foreign secretary, told the BBC that Mr. Pompeo’s statement was “an extremely welcome announcement.”
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations special envoy for the Yemen conflict, also expressed appreciation. “I urge all concerned parties to seize this opportunity,” Mr. Griffiths said in a statement.
The United States and Britain have faced increased criticism themselves over their support for the Saudi military in the Yemen war, which includes supplying bombs and intelligence. A growing number of American congressional representatives from both parties have demanded that the United States suspend weapons sales and other aid. Critics of Saudi Arabia in Britain have been pressing Prime Minister Theresa May’s government to do the same.
Although the Saudis have contended that they seek to avoid killing civilians in their bombing runs and missile strikes on Houthi targets, the aerial assaults have hit hospitals, markets, school buses and funerals. The Houthis have frequently responded by firing missiles over the border into Saudi Arabia.
The war has led to a staggering humanitarian catastrophe, punctuated by disease, famine and near-famine conditions in parts of the country.
Last week Mark Lowcock, the top humanitarian relief official of the United Nations, said the number of Yemenis who need emergency food to survive could soon reach 14 million, half the population.
The Saudis intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthis had occupied much of the country and expelled the Saudi-backed government in Sana, the capital. The Saudis contend that the Houthis are supported by Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional adversary.
For their part, Saudi Arabia and its principal Arab ally in the conflict, the United Arab Emirates, have emphasized they are among the biggest donors to United Nations humanitarian efforts in Yemen. The two countries provided about $930 million, or roughly one third, of the United Nations humanitarian aid budget for Yemen in 2018.
But questions about that aid commitment have arisen over a report that the Saudis and the Emiratis demanded positive publicity from the United Nations relief agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in return for the support.
The Guardian reported Tuesday that an internal United Nations document showed that the aid from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates was partly contingent on beneficial publicity about their largess.
Officials at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations missions of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Guardian report.
