Peace Breaking Out in Yemen

April 7, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—A permanent ceasefire for the long and deadly war in Yemen will, various media report, be signed next week in Sana’a. The Iran-backed Houthi government in Sana’a is to host a delegation representing Saudi Arabia and Oman in Sana’a at which the truce is to be signed. According to the Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen, during the truce, the Saudi blockade of Yemeni ports would be lifted, and the Saudis, along with the UN, would host talks to arrange a two-year transition for establishing a coalition government comprised of the Houthis and some of the Saudi-backed rivals in Yemen.

This last week UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg met with high-level Houthi and Omani officials. Then, yesterday, the Saudis and their partners lifted their naval blockade, including to southern ports, such as Aden. Over the last eight years, that blockade has led to famine and starvation in Yemen, but the blockade over the main Houthi port of Hodeidah was lifted in February.

Then today, according to Al-Mayadeen, the Saudis summoned the Yemeni opposition to Riyadh to explain the diplomatic arrangements. Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman presented “the solution for a way out of the war on Yemen.”

There is much more to be done, but what has been an intractable conflict with hundreds of thousands of deaths over almost a decade seems to have been quickly addressed since the March 10 Saudi-Iran rapprochement. The Chinese role in that diplomatic breakthrough is intimately tied to the “win-win” approach of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. In the contrasting, dog-eat-dog world of Anglo-American “war diplomacy,” it is clear that peace is not possible.