A Saudi delegation was in Yemen’s capital on Sunday to negotiate a potential new truce with the Iran-backed Huthi rebels who control the city, diplomats said, as Riyadh seeks a way out of the war.
Huthi media showed the group’s political leader, Mahdi al-Mashat, shaking hands and meeting with Saudi officials including the kingdom’s ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed Al-Jaber. The Saudi officials are “in Sanaa to discuss moving forward to create peace in Yemen,” said a Yemeni diplomat based in the Gulf region, information that was confirmed by a second diplomat.
Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment. The delegation’s arrival comes roughly a month after China helped broker a surprise rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
That deal has fuelled hopes for progress on ending the Yemen conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and triggered what the United Nations called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The deal is expected to fulfil key Huthi goals, including paying salaries of civil servants in Huthi-controlled areas and lifting operational restrictions on Huthi-controlled airports and ports.
Saudi analyst Hesham Alghannam said the apparent diplomatic momentum was a sign that the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement was bearing fruit.
“Progress on Yemen was always a priority for the Saudis. But without Iranian (cooperation) things would not go as fast as what we are witnessing now,” said Alghannam, head of national security programmes at the Naif Arab University for Security Sciences in Riyadh.
“In the past, talking to (the Huthis) was not very helpful, to say the least. The head of the Huthis’ prisoners of war committee told rebel media on Saturday that 13 prisoners freed by the Saudis had arrived in Sanaa, in exchange for one Saudi released earlier. Saudi officials have not commented on the report.
Source: eNCA
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