Almost an entire year of fighting over Maarib has fueled high hopes of a new effort to end the Yemen War, and the Houthis are backing that, calling for dialogue with an eye toward peace.
Houthi FM Hisham Sharaf said the group wants talks under the auspices of the UN, or at least with international partners overseeing thew process.
Past peace bids have gotten bogged down in details, with groups not wanting to meet one another directly about certain topics. The war has gone on long enough that there are many enemies.
The end game of the war has been expected to involve power-sharing, but the players involved and the terms are going to take a long while to hash out.
So they r giving up on marib? Lost a looooooooot of people over that.
Demographics means they can take extreme losses every year for a decade and still have no problems finding new recruitees to replenish their ranks.