It may speed up peace talks between Riyadh and the Houthi movement, but it risks locking out other groups
Saudi Arabia
The council said it had “no clue and no briefing” about the talks to end the near decade-long war, and thatcould be presented with a fait accompli. The special representative to the STC president on foreign affairs, Amir al Bidh, said: “We hear a deal is coming, but we do not hear it from any official channel.”
Iran has been arming the Houthi movement for years, and the group has been launching attacks over the border into Saudi Arabia as well as fighting to win control of the whole of Yemen, most recently by attacking the oil-rich province of Marib. The STC said it had no objection to the secret Saudi-Houthi talks if they are confined to confidence-building measures or the security of the border between Houthi-held Yemen and Saudi Arabia, but Bidh said he feared the talks were going “much deeper”.
The Sana’a Centre, Yemen’s forefront thinktank, joined the STC in warning of the dangers of exclusively Saudi-Houthi talks in an editorial published at the weekend. It said that “left to their own devices, there is every possibility the Houthis and Saudis will make a deal that suits their interests alone, and not those of Yemen and its citizens. Instead of peace, the result might be the institutionalization of an unstable political configuration, which will ultimately invite further violence”.
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