Originally published on The Guardian website, by Patrick Wintour, April 26 2019
UK foreign secretary hosts Saudi and UAE ministers amid Hodeida redeployment row
Jeremy Hunt is to make a fresh effort to keep the Yemen peace process alive as he faces pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to declare that the Houthis have failed to abide by commitments to move their forces from Hodeida.
The UK foreign secretary was due to host the Saudi and Emirati foreign ministers in London on Friday, as well as David Satterfield, a US acting assistant secretary of state and a Middle East veteran.
The war has claimed up to 70,000 lives, plunged hundreds of thousands into famine and there has recently been a fresh outbreak of cholera.
The UN-sponsored peace process has hit a succession of roadblocks since the two sides agreed in Stockholm in December to withdraw troops from around the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeida.
A truce around the town has partly held, even if both sides repeatedly log incidents of ceasefire breaches.
The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, has travelled to Sana’a and Hodeida to clear the blockages to the redeployment, and told the UN security council on 15 April that Michael Lollesgaard, a UN-appointed former general, had finally secured agreement to phase one of the withdrawal of forces loyal to the Houthis, a group who prefer to be known as Ansar Allah.
The International Crisis Group, a thinktank tracking the civil war, says the delay is primarily caused by a dispute between Hadi and Houthis over the nature of the force that should take over Hodeida. Hadi wants the forces to be drawn from the pre-2014 police force and coastguards, and for them to be supervised by the interior ministry. The Houthis’ interpretation is that current security forces – which include many of their supporters – will remain in the city and ports, with minimal changes, once military forces have been removed.
The Saudis and UAE are almost trapped politically, aware that the prosecution of the war is causing immense damage to their reputation, and yet not capable of reaching a wider political agreement with the Houthis on Yemen’s future.
Some western diplomats say it is an unanswered question whether the loose Houthi military and political structures are capable of reaching an agreement.
Some also in retrospect question whether Hodeida was the right place to focus an initial agreement, since the port’s monetary and strategic value to the Houthis is so large that it is difficult for its leaders to withdraw in favour of a neutral force.
Helen Lackner, a Yemen expert, is one of many to note that the Stockholm agreement was “signed under heavy pressure, the very brevity and vagueness of the texts … are a reminder of the rushed process which brought them about”.
But there appears to be no US desire to set a deadline by which the Stockholm agreement must be implemented. The US Congress has voted to end US support for the war, a decision that has prompted a rare presidential veto by Donald Trump.
Link to the original post:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/26/jeremy-hunt-hosts-talks-effort-save-yemen-peace-process
