Yemen factions divided over peace talk terms | Reuters

RIYADH (Reuters) - The prospect of talks to end Yemen’s crisis has been welcomed by all sides, but as the fighting and Saudi air strikes continue, there is little agreement on how negotiations might take place.

At stake is a ceasefire in Yemen, where four weeks of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign have caused hundreds of civilian casualties and added a new layer of hardship to an existing humanitarian crisis by imposing a naval blockade.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government in exile in Riyadh say they will only talk if the Houthis quit cities they have occupied, particularly the port of Aden, and lay down their arms.

For their part, the Houthis say they will talk only if the air strikes stop completely.

To date, those talks have yet to start, according to Yemeni Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla, who said there was no communication between the government and the Houthis.

“There can be no communication until they put their weapons aside,” he told reporters on a visit to Bahrain, adding talks could start only when the Houthis also withdrew from all cities and the situation stabilised.

Hadi’s position is backed by Saudi Arabia, which despite announcing an end to its bombing campaign on Tuesday, is still using air strikes to target military activity by the Houthis and their allies in Yemeni cities.

A purported Omani proposal circulated by Yemeni government officials this week was drafted along those lines, also stipulating that Hadi and his government be allowed to resume their position.

In return, according to the proposal, all parties would prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections soon, and Yemen’s economic and humanitarian crisis would be addressed with international aid and investment.

BETTER TERMS

Its fighters still battling in Aden and other cities, the Houthi militia appears to believe it can make better terms than this and has not publicly changed its view that Hadi no longer has legitimacy.

However, it has described United Nations efforts to aid peace talks as positive, and its reported release of Defence Minister General Mahmoud al-Subaihi suggested a more conciliatory approach.

“Saudi Arabia is leaving the door ajar for diplomacy, but is showing the same resolve with air strikes. The Houthis are not letting go either and there is no way the Saudis will accept the Houthis ruling one inch of Yemen,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi political analyst.

What may prove critical, both on the ground and in the movement towards peace talks, is the position of the General People’s Congress (GPC), the party of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has sided with the Houthis.

Army forces loyal to Saleh have been fighting alongside the less well equipped Houthis. The Saudis believe that if those forces can be persuaded to stop fighting, the Houthis will be exposed as hopelessly overextended and forced to retreat.

Saleh has repeatedly refused to quit Yemen, as Hadi and the Saudis want him to, but several army brigades that had sided with him have defected to the government in Riyadh in recent days.

While the Saudi air strikes have had little impact on the Houthis, who are mostly lightly armed guerrillas, they have severely damaged Saleh’s army allies, a senior Western diplomat said.

Meanwhile, leaders from the GPC were reported in Arab media on Thursday to have held talks with Gulf Arab countries as well as the United States and Britain to discuss peace negotiations.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall in Riyadh, Louis Charbonneau in New York, Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo, Noah Browning in Dubai and Farishta Saeed in Bahrain; Editing by William Maclean and Giles Elgood)

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