AFP — A Saudi delegation was in Yemen’s capital on Sunday to negotiate a potential new truce with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who control the city, diplomats said, as Riyadh seeks a way out of the Yemen war.
Houthi media showed the group’s political leader, Mahdi al-Mashat, shaking hands and meeting with Saudi officials including the kingdom’s ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed Al-Jaber.
The Saudi officials are “in Sanaa to discuss moving forward to create peace in Yemen,” said a Yemeni diplomat based in the Gulf region, information that was confirmed by a second diplomat.
Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The delegation’s arrival comes roughly a month after China helped broker a surprise rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is said to back the rebel Houthi group. That deal has fueled hopes for progress on ending the Yemen conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and triggered what the United Nations called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The top Saudi and Iranian diplomats met in Beijing on Thursday, pledging to work together to bring “security and stability” to their turbulent region.
Omani mediators arrived in Sanaa on Saturday.
Yemeni President Mahdi Al-Mashat received the Saudi and Omani delegations in Sana’a, #Yemen. pic.twitter.com/5uw35tAXaZ
— IRNA News Agency (@IrnaEnglish) April 9, 2023
The Houthis seized the city in 2014, triggering the conflict with the internationally recognized government which has been backed for eight years by a military coalition led by Riyadh.
A truce announced roughly a year ago has significantly reduced active hostilities within Yemen, and is still largely respected even though it officially expired in October.
A Yemeni government source, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday that the Saudis and Houthis had agreed in principle on a six-month truce to pave the way for three months of talks on establishing a two-year “transition” for the war-torn country.
The deal is expected to fulfill key Houthi goals, including paying salaries of civil servants in Houthi-controlled areas and lifting operational restrictions on Houthi-controlled airports and ports.
Saudi analyst Hesham Alghannam said the apparent diplomatic momentum was a sign that the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement was bearing fruit.
Armed Houthi fighters attend the funeral procession of Houthi rebel fighters who were killed in recent fighting with forces of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, in Sanaa, Yemen, November 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
“Progress on Yemen was always a priority for the Saudis. But without Iranian [cooperation] things would not go as fast as what we are witnessing now,” said Alghannam, head of national security programs at the Naif Arab University for Security Sciences in Riyadh.
“In the past, talking to [the Houthis] was not very helpful, to say the least,” Alghannam said.
The head of the Houthis’ prisoners of war committee told rebel media on Saturday that 13 prisoners freed by the Saudis had arrived in Sanaa, in exchange for one Saudi released earlier.
Saudi officials have not commented on the report.
In early March, the United Nations confirmed that the rebels and Yemen’s internationally recognized government had agreed to exchange more than 880 prisoners.
Sanaa residents told AFP on Sunday that they hoped for a breakthrough that would go beyond a Saudi exit, stressing the need for a broader resolution among their deeply fractured country’s many religious, regional and political groups.
“The visit of a Saudi delegation to Sanaa bodes well. We want the war to end. We are tired,” said 23-year-old Ali Hussein.
Abd al-Salam Shamir, 29, said: “The country is exhausted from the war, and we want all politicians to be one hand now in building Yemen.”
A 46-year-old teacher in the port city of Hodeida, who gave his name as Mansour, bemoaned the heavy economic toll of the fighting.
Like other civil servants in Houthi-controlled zones, Mansour, who declined to give his surname, has not received his salary in seven years.
“War is not just rockets and missiles, it also means the deterioration of our economic situation,” he said.
