Saudi Arabia has persuaded the key players in the Yemeni coalition government to go along with a minimum eight-month ceasefire with Houthi rebels in parallel with talks on the future of the country that may take as long as two years, as it rushes to capitalise on its new relationship with Iran.
Saudi and Houthi leaders met on Sunday for the first time in public in the Houthi-held capital, Sana’a, with the Saudis keen to cut their losses after a disastrous eight-year-long intervention that started with airstrikes in 2015. Mediators from Oman were also present.
The UN’s envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said it was the nearest Yemen had been to peace since the fighting started. But optimism is clouded by the likelihood of disputes about the delegations to any peace talks, doubts over Houthi reliability, as well as demands from within Yemen’s south for a separate state.
A path to a ceasefire in Yemen, where Iran has been backing the Houthi rebels based in the north of the country, was generally regarded as one of the key potential benefits to Riyadh in improving relations with Tehran, but few expected such rapid progress.
The scale of the Saudi volte-face was reflected in a picture of the Saudi ambassador to Yemen sitting on a sofa in the Sana’a presidential palace next to the Houthi leader, Ali Qarshah, on Sunday. In November 2017, the Houthi leader was named as one of 40 Houthi terrorists for which Saudi Arabia was prepared to pay multimillion-dollar rewards in return for information on their whereabouts. Qarshah was priced by the Saudis at $5m (£4.04m).
Diplomats from Tehran are due in Riyadh on Tuesday to start the process of reopening its long closed embassy, and a similar process is under way between Iran and Bahrain in a sign of how the Tehran-Riyadh agreement brokered on 10 March in China has the potential to upend the face of Middle East diplomacy.
One of Saudi Arabia’s earliest tasks has been to try to reassure the internationally recognised Yemeni government based in Aden that it is not being abandoned by Riyadh and that years of fighting are not going to end with in effect a surrender.
A draft agreement presented to the Yemeni government includes a ceasefire for a period of six months in a first phase to build confidence, and then a period of negotiation for three months on managing the transitional phase, which will last for two years, during which a final solution will be negotiated between all parties.
Public employees in areas under Houthi control will be paid with oil and gas revenues from government-controlled fields, a longstanding Houthi demand. Blockades on ports will be lifted and goods will be allowed into Aden without first going to Saudi Arabia.
The factions within the Yemeni government may have little option for the moment but to accept the Saudi peace proposal, whatever its fears over what the future may hold.
Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates, has been bankrolling the Yemeni government, as well as severely hampering the flow of goods into the country, particularly at ports controlled by the Houthis. Only a year ago, Riyadh was instrumental in reorganising the Aden-based government, creating a new body, the Presidential Leadership Council, chaired by Rashad al-Alimi. It also gave a larger role to the Southern Transitional Council, the largest separatist group seeking independence from the north of Yemen.
Despite the pictures of the Saudi leadership meeting the Houthi high command in Sana’a on Sunday with only intermediaries from Oman present, the Yemeni government denied it felt carved out of the deal, insisting it had been consulted.
Yemen’s foreign minister, Ahmad bin Mubarak, said: “Yemen is the finest place to demonstrate that Iran is abandoning its regional expansionist goals.”
The Yemeni information minister, Muammar al-Eryani, welcomed Saudi Arabia’s efforts to establish comprehensive peace in his country and said he was “absolutely confident” that Yemen maintained a major place with the kingdom and its leadership.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi spokesperson, hinted at problems ahead over the formation of delegations to any talks on Yemen’s future constitution. He said: “Saudi Arabia is not a mediator but a party to the conflict, and we are not ready to negotiate with it again through Rashad al-Alimi who was appointed by it, but this does not replace the need for a Yemeni dialogue.”
The talks will focus on all the issues that have been at the heart of Yemen’s civil war since the Houthis captured Sana’a. Saudi Arabia entered what its leadership thought might prove to be a short war to defeat the Houthis by throwing them out of Sana’a. It is hoped that the absence of Iran, the UAE or Saudi Arabia intervening with arms or funds would force the different sides in Yemen to reach a deal, but there is no guarantee since the Houthis’ politics and ideology is alien to many Yemenis.
Saudi Arabia will be looking for assurances that the Houthis will not relaunch their campaign of sending drones into the kingdom, something that will require a buffer zone along the 800-mile border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.