US determination to keep Saudi Arabia engaged in a peace process with Israel has led Washington to give Riyadh an informal green light to try to revive a peace deal with the Houthis, the Yemen-based rebels who have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November.
The proposed Yemen UN roadmap for peace was agreed in outline in early December but progress was immediately frozen as the Houthis escalated their campaign of attacks in the Red Sea in what they billed as an act of solidarity with Palestine.
The campaign, estimated a week ago by the Houthi leadership to have amounted to 112 attacks on ships, has led to a dramatic fall in maritime trade through the Red Sea and a surge in insurance costs
The US and the UK have been trying to degrade Houthi mobile missile sites, but as recently as last week the Houthis said they planned to expand the scope of attacks, and traffic volumes remain relatively low at 40- 50% of those in the same period of last year.
It now appears Saudi Arabia, with the support of the UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, wants to press ahead with the roadmap, even though it could lead to large sums of money being handed to the Houthis, who will also eventually be given a permanent place in a proposed national unity government.
In a meeting on Monday, Grundberg told the UN-recognised government in Aden opposed to the Houthis that peace talks should go ahead. He added that he had told the Houthis he could not envisage the roadmap being signed if the Red Sea attacks continued. Grundberg later told the UN security council that “despite the conflict a peaceful and just solution remains possible”.
Leaders of the Aden-based government sounded the alarm on Tuesday, saying any roadmap would have to be “recalibrated” for it to be acceptable to them.
In a briefing, Amr al-Bidh, a senior official in the Southern Transitional Council, a key part of the Aden-based government, set two major preconditions for the roadmap being launched. He demanded greater transparency over the roadmap itself, along with a UN-monitored ceasefire inside Yemen and an end to Houthi attacks on global shipping.
He said: “There can be no reward for terrorism. We cannot go ahead with the roadmap as it was designed six months ago. Things have changed. We need external guarantees about a ceasefire, through a UN monitoring mission, and there has to be transparency about giving any money to the Houthis. We should not be wanting to empower the Houthis by giving them large bulk payments upfront.”
The UN roadmap largely reflected previous private bilateral peace talks between Saudis and the Houthis, including bulk payments to the Houthis to compensate for unpaid public salaries, and an increase in resources provided to the north of Yemen, but the deal has never been presented to the UN-backed government.
The Houthis now appear to want the deal signed, either with the UN or bilaterally with the Saudis.
It appears that the Saudis, sensing a military stalemate between the US Navy and the Houthis, are impatient to end their engagement in Yemen, even if it leaves the Saudi-backed Aden government as perceived losers in the process.
The US appears to be more amenable to the Saudis’ impatience for a Yemen deal, and Washington needs Saudi support to end the conflict in Gaza, opening a diplomatic space for the US to persuade the Saudis to agree a defence pact with the US and to normalise relations with Israel, moves that might in turn weaken Iran’s influence in the region. Washington has floated incentives to persuade the Houthis to stop the attacks including the acceleration of the roadmap talks and lifting restrictions on Houthi trade.
UK officials favour a tougher approach with the Houthis on the basis that signing a peace deal beneficial to the Houthis is unjustifiable.
Saudi Arabia has been on the back foot in Yemen since 2016 when the Houthis, previously a relatively geographically confined tribe in northern Yemen’s highlands, waged a succession of wars that culminated in the capture of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, driving the Saudi-backed opposition forces south to set up their headquarters in Aden.
Bidh acknowledged that the Iranian-backed Shia Houthis had enjoyed a short-term rise in popularity due to their attacks on Red Sea shipping but said this bubble was bursting as ordinary Yemenis saw the impact on Yemen’s economy.
But he admitted: “We are in a dire situation since the oil exports on which the south’s economy is based are not being transported. The Houthis are saying they can go ahead with the roadmap and yet they can continue shooting at ships in the Red Sea. How can we reach an agreement with a group that is committing acts of terrorism in the Red Sea and wants to take over Yemen?”
Bidh blamed the west for failing to launch a comprehensive economic, political and military strategy to degrade the Houthis influence. “Simply designating the Houthis as a terrorist group was not enough,” he said.
As many as 17 million people in Yemen are dependent on humanitarian aid. Only $792m of the $2.7bn called for in Yemen’s 2024 UN humanitarian response plan has been raised, prompting the UN’s humanitarian coordinator Martin Griffiths to warn of a resurgence of cholera.
