The Saudi-led GCC is planning talks on the ongoing Yemen War, with an eye toward trying to revive the peace process. Ending the war would mean getting the Houthis involved, so they were invited.
With a lot of mistrust involved in that war, getting the Houthis involved was both essential and difficult. The Houthis were very clear ahead of time that they wouldn’t come to Riyadh, and wanted a neutral site. The GCC scheduled for Riyadh anyhow, and issued the invite, which was of course declined.
This is doubly complicating to matters, as not only did the GCC not get the Houthis to attend, they’re also inevitably going to have hawks hitting at the Houthis for refusing to attend, which is going to make the next round of talks harder to work out too.
Everyone seems to agree that negotiations are the only way to resolve this war, and neutral sites would be fairly obvious as a step to making that happen. That it didn’t happen suggests there is more war coming before sincere talks.
Not Trusting Saudis, Houthis Reject Planned Talks in Riyadh
Houthis want talks to be held at neutral site
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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