New Yemeni consultations include Houthi faction among its attendees
The Gulf Cooperation Council plans to invite Yemeni political, cultural and social forces and components, including the Houthis, to upcoming consultations in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Sources indicate that the initiative will be officially announced in the coming days.
The talks will be held under the banner of the Yemeni political solution and will be a mix of the 2013 UN-sponsored Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference and the May 2015 Riyadh Conference. Some 500 participants are expected to attend, all of them from various political currents, intellectuals or representatives of social organisations, among others.
Nayef al-Hajraf, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, met last Monday with Adb Rabbo Mansour Hadi, president of Yemen, to present the proposal and organise the various meetings. The offer was approved by the Yemeni leader.
The Gulf's sponsorship of this initiative seeks to camouflage Saudi Arabia's "shame". Abu Dhabi rejects the idea of the conference being under its name due to the impossibility of making a direct peace offer to the Houthis. This also coincides with a time when the radical faction is carrying out numerous attacks on civilian and government installations in the Wahhabi kingdom.
The Gulf is now pursuing the idea put forward by Saudi Arabia a year ago, which was aimed at achieving a ceasefire and entering into a comprehensive political dialogue process to stop the war. However, the rebels rejected it outright despite receiving regional and international support.
Political sources close to the organisation dismissed their response to the invitation, which would confirm their lack of involvement in overcoming the conflict. Meanwhile, the spokesman for the foreign ministry of the unrecognised Houthi government, Ahmed al-Imad, claims that they did not receive the invitation and that "Saudi Arabia is part of the aggression, it is not a neutral country".
The conference will allow for the review and evaluation of seven years of war, and the creation of specialised committees to follow up on the implementation of the results of the various political, military and economic dialogues. The Gulf Cooperation Council will also establish a mechanism to implement the decisions taken.
Fahd Talib al-Sharafi, Yemen's Minister of Information, notes that this move is not unusual for the GCC as "they are trying to find solutions to alleviate one of the burdens on Yemenis". They are also looking into the details that have prevented the unification of their ranks.
With this invitation, the rebels have a new opportunity to bring peace to a nation that has been suffering the effects of an ongoing war since 2015. Protracted hostilities have left the territory in an unprecedented crisis. The population is struggling with hunger, lack of supplies and serious diseases.
The clashes have their roots in the Arab Spring of 2011, when a popular uprising forced Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power and into the hands of his vice president. The political transition was supposed to lead to stability, but the new government soon had to deal with various problems such as corruption and ongoing Al Qaeda attacks.
The insurgent movement took advantage of this situation to take control of different areas in the north of the region. In 2015, the rebels seized the Yemeni capital Sana'a and the conflict escalated with the intervention of a coalition of states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, supported by the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared that "there is no military solution to the conflict in Yemen" after the latest attack by the Houthis on Abu Dhabi's international airport, in which they used drones and missiles. The Saudi response came hours later with the bombing of the eastern capital.