Today's Edition
DINA MAHMOUD (LONDON) - A year after the Houthi group thwarted regional and international efforts to maintain the United Nations (UN) truce, which lasted for six months last year, Western experts renewed their warnings that the Houthi group’s aggressive practices, as well as its refusal to turn the current de facto truce into an official ceasefire, can cause the collapse of the current calm.
The fact that Houthis continuously increase their demands in exchange for resuming the negotiation process, their refusal to engage in dialogue with the legitimate Yemeni government, and their continuation of military attacks against civilians indicate that the group may resume fighting on a similar or wider scale as before the UN truce first came into effect in April 2022.
According to experts, over the past twelve months, the Houthis escalated their demands repeatedly, requesting salaries for militants who operate in areas under their control, aborting negotiations to reopen the roads leading to Taiz, and attempting to reopen Sanaa Airport and Hodeidah Port to receive planes and ships loaded with weapons and other military supplies.
The experts emphasised, in statements published by the “World Politics Review” website, that the continuation of these violations puts Yemen in a “neither peace nor war” trap, significantly decreasing the chances of finding any final settlement or launching a real peace process.
Peter Salisbury, a senior researcher formerly specialising in Yemeni affairs at the International Crisis Group, pointed out that the crisis in Yemen is facing a “real danger” of being forgotten by the international community, as the world is currently preoccupied with addressing other burgeoning regional and international conflicts. Salisbury stressed that the Houthi group strongly resists the idea of engaging in any political talks, fearing that such a step would diminish their rule over the areas under their control.
The Houthi group’s coup against the internationally recognised Yemeni government, which happened in 2014, has inflamed the conflict and plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis, which the UN labelled as the worst of its kind.
The expert warned that the current stagnation increases the chances of the Yemeni conflict being “forgotten internationally”, which significantly reduces the chances of ending the nine-year-old crisis.
