Saudi Arabia offers ceasefire to Houthis in Yemen
Saudi Arabia on Monday offered a ceasefire proposal to the Houthis in Yemen under UN supervision. The peace initiative includes the reopening of air and sea links, as well as the payment of taxes and customs revenues for oil tankers docking at the port of Hodeida in western Yemen.
"We want the weapons to be completely silenced," said Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan. The minister said the kingdom's goal is "to have a ceasefire immediately". "It is a political solution to make Yemen safe. However, the timing is now up to the Houthis. They have to decide between Yemen's interests or Iran's," he added.
"This Saudi initiative (...) is an opportunity to end the crisis and for all parties in Yemen to put Yemen's interests first," Bin Farhan said. "This draft includes practical measures consistent with international efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people, a comprehensive ceasefire to stop the bloodshed and a political dialogue between the parties under UN supervision."
The proposal contains two concessions made by the Saudis to the insurgents. The first is the reopening of Sana'a's international airport, closed since 2015, which would revitalise Yemen's contact with the outside world. The second is the creation of a joint account at the Central Bank of Yemen, into which taxes, customs and other fees generated by the port of Hodeida during the import of oil would be deposited, to which both the Houthis and the recognised government would have access to finance their respective apparatuses.
Nevertheless, Riyadh has denounced Iranian influence in the region and its support for the Shia militia. Bin Farhan himself qualified that the kingdom reserves the right to defend its territory, citizens and residents from "systematic attacks" carried out by the rebels against civilian targets and installations important to "the world's economy and energy security".
The offer comes amid an ongoing exchange of blows between Saudi-led coalition forces and Yemeni insurgents. Tensions in the region have risen sharply following repeated Houthi air offensives on Saudi oil installations and military hangars, and the Kingdom's bombing of the capital, Sana'a, and other enclaves in the country.
The main battlefront is in the governorate of Marib and its capital of the same name. Last February, the insurgents launched an air and ground offensive in the area to seize the last bastion of the Aden government in the north of the country, as well as one of the areas with the largest oil and gas reserves in Yemen. However, coalition forces maintain their position and superiority on the ground for the time being.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has conveyed Washington's support for efforts to stabilise the region to the Saudi Foreign Minister, while the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, has described the proposal as "a positive step in the process towards peace". For its part, the United Nations has assured that the Saudi initiative is in line with the organisation's aspirations and has established a mechanism for inspecting vessels in Djibouti prior to their arrival in the port of Hodeida, however, coalition warships are still holding most of the ships.
"This proposal does not contain any new or positive points," said Houthi spokesman Mohamed Abdelsalam, speaking to the group's Al-Masirah television channel. "Any initiative that does not warn that Yemen has been under aggression and blockade for six years and separates the humanitarian side from any military or political pact is not serious or new," Abdul Salam added.
This is how the Houthi insurgency announced its rejection of Saudi Arabia's proposal. Although the militia's leader, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, proposed a nationwide ceasefire on Friday on condition that Saudi Arabia reopen Sana'a airport to commercial flights and lift restrictions on cargo shipments to Hodeida, a condition accepted by the Saudis, according to the Associated Press.
The undersecretary of the rebel Civil Aviation and Meteorology Authority, Raed Jabal, said Tuesday that Sana'a airport has been raided by several fighter jets following a "false initiative" by coalition forces. Jabal added that the offer was "an attempt to mislead public opinion in front of the international community", according to the Houthi news agency SABA.
The Saudi-led coalition officially entered the Yemen war on 22 March 2015, when insurgents threatened to take Aden. Six years on, the fighting continues. The war has killed an estimated 130,000 people, including more than 13,000 civilians, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Project. Tens of thousands of children have also died of starvation and disease in what has become the world's largest humanitarian crisis.