The Political Movement Against Oman’s Peace Efforts

The current month of January witnessed a stormy political movement from various parties, as there was progress in the efforts made by the Sultanate of Oman to bring together the views of Sana’a and Riyadh, media leaks also emerged about the arrival of the Saudi ambassador to Sana’a, coinciding with the publication of “Al-Hadath” TV general principles for renewing the truce related to humanitarian aspects.

In the face of this, the United States, the European Union and the UN envoy intensified their diplomatic movement, as the UN envoy made shuttle trips between Riyadh, Sana’a, Aman, Muscat and Switzerland, the Yemeni file was with him in all these movements.

During this period, a new, more realistic tone of Russian discourse emerged in its emphasis on the need to listen to Sana’a and not skip them, as well as to refer to the West’s interest in re-exporting Yemeni oil and gas rather than achieving Yemeni peace.

It was observed the active daily movement of the American and British ambassadors, and the almost daily meetings with officials in the exile government and members of the “leadership council” headed by Al-Alaimy, hardly a day goes by without an ambassador meeting with an official in the puppet government, meaning that in practice they are now practicing political activity instead of the puppet government and the puppet leadership council, they went beyond that previously prevalent remote guidance.

During this period, the US-European, United Nations discourse reiterated the need to involve the rest of the Yemeni forces in the talks, however, this concept is not concerned with the Yemeni political parties that were involved in the Movenpick negotiations, but rather the political-military forces that currently have a map of control, as it is a call for sharing, no to a solution to Yemeni issues.

In this period, a variable related to the political movement emerged, which is the contact of the commander of the US Central Command, General Michael E. Corella, with the Chief of Staff, the agent “Saghir bin Aziz”, unusually, this contact was direct beyond the leadership of the “coalition”, this leads us to assume that the United States is considering the possibility of pressure across fronts, and in practice this period has seen skirmishes on various fronts across the country.

It is unlikely that the United States, which has strategically lost the war in Yemen, is preparing itself for a new war in Yemen, however, this does not mean that it supports peace, but rather that it seeks to guide the peace process in a way that serves its interests and not in the interest of the people.

The outcome of the political movements by Western countries is to bring the puppet government and the so-called Leadership Council to the forefront and involve it in the talks, it has invested in them, and wants to support them to ensure the future of its neo-colonial influence.

However, the most significant obstacle to this trend is the cracks in the puppet’s leadership board, so much of the efforts of the two U.S. ambassadors therefore, a great deal of the efforts of the American and British ambassadors are to calm the conflicts between the puppet factions and restore cohesion to the Leadership Council, they are rigorous efforts but reach the desired result.

course of events

In the first quarter of January, the colaition forces witnessed a state of alert, with the frequency of talking about direct talks between Sana’a and Riyadh taking place under the auspices of Muscat, especially after the arrival of a delegation from the Sultanate of Oman to Sanaa on January 10, 2023 AD, the intention of these moves was to thwart any peace efforts that did not involve them in dominating the future of Yemen, as on January 11, 2023, the American, British, French, and the UN envoy appeared at the same time in a unified tone.

The Omani Foreign Minister received the United Nations envoy who visited the Sultanate. According to the Agency, during the interview, views were exchanged on the endeavors to achieve peace in Yemen.

The visit was part of the recommendations of the “International Crisis Group” report early in the month, which urged the United Nations to demonstrate its presence and make sure that any talks between Sana’a and Riyadh do not come at the expense of the puppet government, and precisely their local agents in Yemen, the day before it, Sultan al-Arada met with the French Ambassador to Yemen.

On the same day, the American Ambassador met with both the member of the so-called Leadership Council, Abdul Rahman al-Mahrami, as well as the meeting with Aidaros al-Zubaidi, who unified international and regional attitude against Sana’a “.

It was clear that the United States of America, after reality proved the failure of the option of displacing national forces, believes that the other option is to consolidate the balance that allows it to formulate a political solution based on sharing and quotas it has been a regional project from the outset, although efforts to restore it today on new sharing bases reflect the multiplicity of powers on the ground.

Days later, news emerged about a possible visit of the UN envoy to Sana’a, and the latter refused to receive the envoy, and the envoy wanted to arrive in Sana’a to submit a report to the UN Security Council, next Monday has scheduled a closed meeting in the Security Council on developments in Yemen.

On January 15, the national and Omani delegations left the capital, Sana’a, after describing the discussions as positive and included humanitarian arrangements that pave the way for a comprehensive peace. Since the arrival of the national delegation and the delegation of the Sultanate of Oman, the foreign media have been speculating about the content of what was discussed.

Mostly, the foreign media almost confirmed that there was a preliminary agreement between Sana’a and Riyadh, while other media outlets denied it, and a media discourse appeared more concerned about what is going on, which is the speech of the Muslim Brotherhood, who kept repeating his old speech that Sana’a is hindering peace and putting forward impossible conditions, and on the other hand, the authors of this speech spoke in an implicit warning tone that any settlement that does not accommodate everyone – and they mean themselves – will be the gateway to a new Yemeni-Yemeni war.

In theory, the Omani mediation was able to make a breakthrough in the stalemate of the political process since last October 2022, in the humanitarian aspect related to handing over the salaries of all Yemeni employees and lifting the siege on Sana’a International Airport and the port of Hodeida and the issues of prisoner exchange and the opening of roads.

A day before the Security Council meeting on Yemen, the Foreign Minister of the puppet government met with the British Ambassador (the holder of the Yemeni file in the Security Council), he also met with the French ambassador, who mainly represents the interests of Total’s global monopoly.

On January 16, the UN envoy arrived in Sana’a from Amman with a group of his aides, on the day of the session and after the Omani and national delegations left, and in his briefing to the Security Council from Sana’a, he said that he had positive and constructive discussions with the leadership here in Sana’a represented by Mr. Mahdi Al-Mashat, and that he looks forward to continuing these talks as he counted his meetings with Al-Alaimy, Riyadh and Muscat.

In his surrounding the Security Council, the envoy spoke about the following:

“His continuous communication with the national delegation.”

“Continuing restrictions on women.”

“Yemenis need an end to the war, not repeated UN briefings.”

“It is feared that 2023 will be another difficult year for Yemenis.”

“He said that the international organization recorded three thousand and 300 cases of obstruction of humanitarian access in Yemen during the past year.”

At the Security Council meeting, it was noticeable that the points of disagreement between the American-British and Russian discourse on this issue widened, as the Americans were disturbed by the recent political movement and recalling the operations to prevent the looting of oil, assuming that Sana’a’s involvement in the political process is manipulation (not in good faith) and talking about allegations of smuggling and others, calling on Ansarullah to change their behavior, while Britain renewed its support for the puppet government through its ambassador, the speech of Russia’s representative in the Security Council was closer to Sana’a by talking about the need to negotiate with Ansarullah, on the opportunism of the West and its desire for Yemen’s oil and gas, not peace, he also called for support for the population and the lifting of restrictions on the entry of foodstuffs, which is a more positive discourse compared to their positions at the beginning of the aggression.

In Riyadh and in the same day, Aidarous Al -Zubaidi received the European Union’s ambassador to Yemen.

On January 17, during a meeting with the European Union ambassador, Rashad al-Alaimy, head of the so-called Leadership Council, claimed his cartoon government’s support for “a just and comprehensive peace approach that guarantees the participation of all Yemenis in power and wealth,” he also warned of the danger of submission to what he called the blackmail of Sana’a.

Al-Alaimy’s speech reflected the fear of being excluded from the political future, and in the same context, he spoke about the need to adhere to the three references, including the Gulf initiative and Security Council resolutions, which are no longer realistic.

On January 18, the Saudi foreign minister met with the UN envoy to Yemen in Switzerland, and the foreign minister assumed that Saudi Arabia was investing in security and stability in the region and was interested in Yemen’s security, he said.

On the other hand, the French ambassador said: The road to peace passes through national reconciliation in Yemen, and the issue of internal reconciliation was repeated by the UN envoy and the British ambassador before that in more than one record, realistically, national reconciliation is extremely important in the path of peace, which is the guarantee of security and sovereignty because the aggression came with the complicity of internal parties, and comprehensive negotiations also gain their importance from the fact that Yemen is going through a transitional stage since 2011, many internal issues requiring consensus have not been resolved.

However, the discourse of the international parties on national reconciliation and Yemeni Yemeni dialogue does not mean the national partnership, as these countries want to guarantee the future of the client government to ensure their interests as they are their agents, the content of Western discourse: “We don’t want a settlement between Sana’a and Riyadh, in which our interests are not represented.”

On January 19, the news media republished the leak of the Saudi ambassador’s visit to Sana’a, coinciding with the publication by Al-Hadath TV of the terms of the agreement to hand over the salaries of all employees, lift the blockade on the port of Hodeida and open new destinations at Sana’a International Airport.

In this atmosphere, the head of the Islah Party affirmed the group’s support for all efforts to establish comprehensive and sustainable peace in Yemen, based on the three references, as a kind of attempt to return to the scene after Saudi Arabia bypassed mercenaries in general in its recent talks with Sana’a.

In a meeting with the head of the Islah Party, the US ambassador stressed the need to put aside differences and unite the ranks of mercenaries, in order to pressure the national forces in the peace process.

These accelerating events were of interest to the foreign press as the American ACLED Center predicted that back-channel talks between Sana’a and Riyadh would lead to two possibilities:

(i) peace negotiations and political talks with the Yemeni parties, and (ii) the current status of low-level hostilities will continue indefinitely, supported by the increased size and effectiveness of Sana’a’s capabilities.

The site “TRT” saw that it has become impossible to return Sana’a to the negotiating table, and in the two sources there was confirmation of Sana’s growing military and therefore political power.

The Canadian writer Thomas Juneau, in an article in LA PRESSE, assumed that the recent negotiations between Sana’a and Riyadh would not succeed and that the parties had no desire to build peace, and he assumed that Saudi Arabia was seeking to disengage from war, while reducing the costs of her catastrophic adventure in Yemen, Ansarullah have become stronger with Iranian support and have no intention of making serious concessions to Saudi Arabia or the (puppet) government, as he understands it.

The Western press showed great interest in developments in Yemen and appeared as a media campaign to question the credibility of Ansarullah on the issue of peace, and to defend the puppet government excluded from the talks.

On January 24, Saghir bin Aziz received a phone call from the commander of the US Central Command, according to the news: “During the call, joint cooperation between the Yemeni armed forces and the US army was discussed and joint efforts in the fight against terrorism.”

This is the first contact of its kind as a direct contact from the commander of U.S. Central Command with a Yemeni defense minister or chief of staff who has been an agent since the beginning of the aggression, usually taking dictates directly from Saudi Arabia.

The news makes us assume that the United States — which is not satisfied with the direct talks between Sana’a and the Riyadh– It transmitted communication directly to Yemeni mercenaries to coordinate hostilities.

Based on the fact that Western Research Centres express and make the Western view, the “International Crisis Group” was mentioned in a report Weeks ago, direct negotiations between Sana ‘a and Riyadh in isolation from mercenaries could lead to the puppet Government’s decision to return to war.

It is not unlikely that the United States plans to escalate through mercenaries, in order to prove their presence and thus pressure both Sana’a and Riyadh to accommodate them in these negotiations.

This does not mean that America intends to return the war again to what it was before the armistice, as the United States is aware of the reality of mercenaries and its failure in the war in its strategic dimension, and has calculations related to the war in Ukraine it makes it prefer to stop the war in Yemen, but stop it in a way that serves America and guarantees the future of Western, American, and European influence in our country.

During the period of political mobility, there were skirmishes with mercenaries on various fronts, especially in Taiz, Marib and Jawf, where the Brotherhood stationed greater.

On January 26, 2023, the Puppet Foreign Minister met with the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and other German officials, this comes within the framework of the intensification of the puppet government’s actions, for his part, the UN envoy called on the parties to the crisis to make what he called “concessions.”

While a member of the so -called command council, Sultan Al -Arada, met with the military advisor to the UN envoy, focusing the talk about the position of Marib militarily, as one of the military appeals, throughout the past weeks, mercenaries have intensified talking about the fronts of the province. In a related context, a member of the betrayal council met “Abu Zaraa Al -Maharrami” in Riyadh with the UAE ambassador.

British-American efforts continue to send crumbling puppet forces to fight their final battle, and it appears that the US-British-Emirati efforts also took in an attempt to unite the so-called “Presidential Leadership Council”, which was born dead, it is not unlikely that these efforts will succeed in bringing the agents back to the forefront, but the effects of the fissures between them will be reflected in their political performance, weakening it.

“If Sanaa and Riyadh manage to reach an agreement, the fighting will remain stalled, but such an agreement could also convince the Houthis that they can avoid negotiations with the Presidential Leadership Council, which does not bode well for the prospects for inclusive national dialogue.

The Saudi-Houthi track represents a potential predicament for the United Nations and other international players seeking to end the Yemen war.

The United Nations should guarantee that the Saudi Houthi talks are moving forward, but as the rebels are stripped of the idea that they can avoid dialogue with their opponents, it must also make clear that international legitimacy for all parties depends on participation in the United Nations-led talks.

With little or no impact on the course of talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, the Presidential Council has a choice: wait and see what the negotiations turn out or try to thwart them through unilateral military action.

The Presidential Leadership Council is weak and divided, but it includes key political and military constituencies. Ignoring them would be a mistake, at the same time, the Presidential Council cannot expect outside powers to do all their work on its behalf.

No senior UN official has met with Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the group’s supreme leader, since 2020. Someone must travel to Sana’a, stay there for a while and meet with Al-Houthi, trying to convince him that it is time to make peace.”

International Crisis Group: “How the Houthi-Saudi negotiations in Yemen will succeed or spoil it”, (29 December 2022).

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Source: Saba News Agency