Common ground for talks hard to come by as objectives of local factions differ

Peace and stability in Yemen remain elusive because the local actors in the almost decade-old conflict and their varying objectives make it challenging to find a common ground for dialogue while a confluence of local, regional and international factors complicate the situation, analysts said.

On Aug 11, the United Nations said Yemen continues to face a protracted political, humanitarian and developmental crisis after more than eight years of fighting between pro-government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and Houthi militias.

It was part of a statement issued by the UN when it welcomed the release of five of its security personnel who had been held in captivity for more than a year, exposing one of the many dangers and risks civilians continue to face in Yemen. The men were abducted in the southern governorate of Abyan on Feb 11 last year after returning from a field mission.

Meanwhile, on Aug 10, a bombing in southern Yemen killed four fighters loyal to the Southern Transitional Council, including a prominent commander who previously survived assassination attempts by al-Qaida, Al Arabiya News reported.

"The dynamics of the conflict are an outcome of the interplay of overlapping international, regional, and local factors and players," said Khaldoon Abdulla, a nonresident fellow at the Asia Middle East Center for Research and Dialogue, or AMEC, in Malaysia. Though the China-brokered Saudi-Iran deal was a key factor in advancing the peace process in Yemen, it was not sufficient to resolve the conflict immediately, Abdulla said.

The civil war in Yemen broke out in 2014 after the Houthi militia seized the capital Sanaa, forcing out the internationally recognized government of then-president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Saudi Arabia led a military coalition into Yemen the following year but struggled to take out the militia.

The country has since been divided. Apart from the Houthis, a military group that resisted the rule of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh in the 1990s, some areas are being controlled by the Southern Transitional Council, and the anti-Houthi forces opposed to the government.

Gokhan Ereli, Gulf studies coordinator at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Turkiye, said that diplomatic efforts have been underway among regional and global stakeholders in Yemen for some time. This is aligned with the China-brokered Saudi-Iran rapprochement and the Saudi strategy of reducing conflict zones around its country to prioritize economic development, Ereli said.

'Positive step'

"Although there have been developments that could be regarded as a positive step, the war in Yemen is far from over, not only militarily, but also politically," he said.

Ereli said there are aspects that need to be underlined in terms of politics, military, and diplomacy, including "the environment to resolve the Yemen crisis".

Subsequently, international stakeholders must engage in Yemen while sincerely addressing Yemeni concerns, fostering Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue, and bolstering economic aid to alleviate the suffering of Yemen people, Ereli said.

Nevertheless, the aspirations to achieve peace remain firm as dialogues continue. On Aug 11, an operation led by the UN to transfer over a million barrels of crude oil from a decaying supertanker moored off Yemen's Red Sea coast came to a successful conclusion.

The floating, storage and offloading vessel Safer had been permanently anchored for more than 30 years. Before the escalation of the conflict in 2015, the vessel was used to store and export oil from fields around Yemen's Ma'rib region.

On Aug 10, Saudi Ambassador to Yemen Mohammed al-Jaber met with Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy to Yemen, to discuss the ongoing crisis and explore avenues of cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The meeting took place a week after Saudi authorities announced a $1.2 billion aid for Yemen's internationally recognized government, aimed at boosting the economy and improving food security.

"The multiplicity of the local actors and their objectives makes it difficult to determine a middle ground for peace talks. Meanwhile, the overlap between the local, regional, and international factors exacerbates the situation, adding insult to injury," Abdulla said.