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.
Houthis are well aware of the mental state of the Prince. The man is devoid of honor and is liable to take the delegates hostage. The Prime Minister of Lebanon was held and had to be rescued by Macron. The only reason the Saudis want to have talks is that they finally figured that they got into the wrong fight and against opponent that will not rollover.
My thoughts exactly. The Houthis can read and don’t want to get whacked.
I had figured that the Saudis called the talks because they were going to start selling oil in currencies other than the dollar, which could end the US selling them weapons.
Saudis don’t dare to sell their oil in any other currency besides the dollar. The Saudi family has zero support in their country and they are well aware they may share Gaddafi’s fate if they don’t dance to our tune.
A recent story said that the Saudis are in talks with China to sell them oil in exchange for the Chinese currency.
I’ve seen that also. Maybe MBS will get whacked. He’s getting awfully cocky.