Prospects dim for UN-backed Yemen talks: Analysts

By Mohamed Shbeiri

SANAA, Yemen (AA) – There is little hope for finding a political solution to Yemen’s ongoing conflict at UN-brokered talks in Kuwait at which representatives of both the Yemeni government and the Shia Houthi group are taking part, say analysts.

“Prospects for peace in Yemen appear dim,” Yemeni journalist Amgad Khashafa told Anadolu Agency on Sunday, noting that the Houthis still refused to hand over weapons seized earlier from the government. “[The Houthis] can’t give up their weapons because their ideology is one of expansionism and force.”

Last week, government and Houthi representatives began a fresh round of UN-sponsored talks in Kuwait in hopes of ending the roughly year-and-a-half-long conflict, which has led to a major humanitarian crisis and displaced some 2.5 million Yemenis.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the talks would focus on implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2216.

Adopted by the UNSC in April of last year, the resolution recognizes Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi as Yemen’s legitimate president and calls on the Houthis to hand over cities they captured and lay down their arms.

Earlier rounds of UN-backed peace talks in June and December of last year failed to resolve the conflict, in which more than 6,400 people — half of them civilians — have been killed.

Yemen has been racked by violence since September of 2014, when the Houthis and allied forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh overran capital Sanaa and other parts of the country, forcing Hadi and his government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.

In March of last year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies — which accuse the Houthis of serving as proxies for Shia Iran — launched a massive air campaign in Yemen aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and restoring Hadi’s pro-Saudi government.

Since then, pro-Hadi forces — backed by a Saudi-led military coalition — have managed to retake large swathes of territory from the Houthis in the country’s south.

So far, however, they have been unable to dislodge Houthi militants from capital Sanaa and other key areas.

– Stumbling block

Khashafa believes the demand that the Houthis surrender their weapons constitutes a main stumbling block at the talks in Kuwait. He added, however, that the Shia group might be persuaded to surrender a small portion of its arsenal.

“Any compromise reached in Kuwait will be tenuous as long as the Houthis insist on using their weapons against the state,” he asserted.

Political analyst Yassin al-Tamimi, for his part, voiced a similar opinion.

“The path to peace is fraught with difficulties, as the Houthis and Saleh both still believe they have considerable military force at their disposal,” al-Tamimi told Anadolu Agency.

He described the ongoing talks in Kuwait as a “face-off” between the two warring camps.

“The prospects for hammering out a political compromise appear dim,” the analyst said.

“War will therefore remain an option… unless the position of international stakeholders changes in regards to reaching a compromise and ending the conflict,” he added.

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