YEMEN AT ‘SQUARE ZERO’ AS HOUTHIS SHUN TALKS
The resumption of a peace process is the most fragile moment, the UN envoy Martin Griffiths says.
The veteran mediator was speaking from experience as he called off efforts to bring the Yemeni government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebel faction to talks in Geneva.
Despite pre-meeting commotion over the failure to include large parts of the Yemeni political spectrum, including the Southern Transitional Council and the General People’s Congress, the launch had regional and international backing.
Mr Griffiths said yesterday that he had worked hard to salvage the talks, moving between conference rooms and floors at the Starling Hotel next to Geneva’s airport.
Even as late as Friday afternoon, after the opening had been delayed for two days, he told how the situation “changes all the time – we’ve had twists hour by hour”.
But as he said yesterday, “the elephant in the room” was that the Houthi-led delegation had not agreed to board a flight from Sanaa.
Diplomats said that the set of Houthi conditions that scuppered the Geneva talks were issued only three days before the meeting. Delegations had already been agreed on.
The Houthi team contained a strong set of Congress members. Members of the Congress are also in the Yemeni government’s delegation.
The Houthis refused to fly on a UN plane, suggesting that an official Omani aircraft be provided.
A second condition was that 100 injured Houthi fighters be moved out, along with a companion for each. A Russian-owned Boeing 747 was put on standby at short notice. There were also conditions about guarantees of a safe return.
Khaled Al Yamani, the head of the government delegation and Foreign Minister, was patient.
“They insist on an Omani flight, I don’t know why,” he said at one point. “I said to Martin, ‘There is something you should know. You should be accommodating but not pleasing. They need to know the special envoy can be firm’.”
A separate deal had already been done on moving injured rebels and the first flight was expected to leave for Cairo next week.
“They have something hidden in insisting on this,” Mr Al Yamani said.
Amid attempts to get back on track, there were divided opinions. Sources said that Matthew Tueller, the US ambassador to Yemen, was among those who concluded that their absence showed that the Houthi leadership and their backers were not prepared for talks or compromises.
A missile launch into Saudi Arabia on Thursday night from Houthi-controlled Yemen appeared to deal another death blow.
But efforts to find an acceptable means of flying the Sanaa delegation to Geneva went down to the wire.
Calls to Yusuf bin Alawi, the Omani Foreign Minister, were made to work out the minute details of planes, flight paths, third-country clearances and guarantees of a safe return. No one wanted a repeat of the three-month stand-off in Muscat that came after talks broke down in 2016.
Mr Griffiths has announced his intention to fly to Muscat and Sanaa to keep his initiative going. A lot of ground has been covered in talks with the government delegation on his proposed measures to build confidence, including prisoner releases.
Peter Salisbury, an author on Yemen, described the Geneva meeting as “pre-talks talks” that would get the Yemeni government and its rivals behind a common framework for a fully-fledged peace process.
Despite Mr Griffiths’s robust determination to get back on a plane to shuttle between the two sides, the failure of one side to turn up is a significant indication of the prospect of success. “We are, at best, at square zero,” Mr Salisbury said.
Yemen’s overwhelming problems of food shortages, economic collapse and epidemics cannot be put on hold for this brinkmanship.
Seven months after stepping into his role with a promise to reinvigorate the political process, this is not where Mr Griffiths wants to be.
Bids to find an acceptable means of flying the Houthis to Geneva went down to the wire