...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
and would be too costly for all parties and certainly for the average Yemeni citizen. Winning the war, given the level of armed opposition they have encountered across much of the country and the pressure from the coalition's
Talks in the Omani capital of Muscat, involving Houthi
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the
Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to Americaâ„¢, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews...
representatives and brokered by U.N. officials, have prepared the ground for negotiations in Geneva and have also secured the release of one of the American hostages held by the rebels. Earlier this week, Yemeni government front man Rajeh Badi revealed that the U.N. envoy to Yemen, the Mauritanian Ismail Oul Cheikh Ahmed, had made substantial progress in the goal of bringing the Yemeni government in exile and the Houthis to the U.N.-sponsored talks.
The U.N. envoy himself revealed there is an agreement on "the date, agenda and framework for the Geneva talks and the parties that attend the meeting", and that a formal announcement is expected any hour now. According to Foreign Minister of Yemen Riyadh Yassin, the government has proposed June 14 as the start date for the talks.
Reportedly, among the terms of the agreement that will take the Houthis and the Yemeni government currently led by President Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi and Vice-President Khaled Bahah to Geneva is a ceasefire longer than the previous five-day truce.
Paving the way
The hope is that the Geneva talks start paving the way for an end to the conflict, the full delivery of humanitarian aid, the return of the exiled government, and the resumption of the political dialogue.
According to recent reports, the agreement also involves the departure of Saleh to another country and a Houthi compromise to eventually abide by most of the provisions of U.N. Security Council resolution 2216, including a withdrawal from the cities they have seized. There is, however, a clear divergence over when that withdrawal should take place, with the Houthis refusing to do so before the U.N.-sponsored negotiations.
In this context, Saleh can hardly afford to abandon the Houthis under the price of seeing his position become even more vulnerable. But for the Houthis, the opposite scenario seems to be gaining ground: distancing themselves from Saleh is increasingly looking like a necessary step to gain more credibility during the coming peace talks, which are likely to take some time to bear fruit. The issue then, from the perspective of the Houthi leadership, might come down to the timing of that decision.