Pro-Saudi Yemeni leader Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi has announced there will be a week-long ceasefire, beginning on December 15 and going through December 21, meant to coincide with planned UN peace talks. The Shi’ite Houthis have also agreed to the deal, if the Saudi airstrikes stop as well.
Ceasefires in Yemen are always a dicey proposition, and both sides are likely to be very tentative in the early hours. Hadi’s faction captured the city of Aden, their temporary capital city, in July when they dishonored a week-long ceasefire in the first few hours.
The last UN-brokered peace talks were a disastrous failure back in June, when the two sides refused to even be in the same room. The only time the two sides were even face to face was when pro-Hadi delegates attacked a Houthi press conference, sparking a fist-fight.
We’re unlikely to get any media coverage of a fist-fight this time, however, as the UN has announced the talks will be held at a “secret location,” and neither the venue nor the details of the talks will be discussed publicly, saying at most official updates may be provided directly by the UN Special Envoy.