Yemeni FM to Asharq Al-Awsat: UN Envoy Will Realize Futility of Peace Talks with Houthis

Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani. (Getty Images)
Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani. (Getty Images)
TT
20

Yemeni FM to Asharq Al-Awsat: UN Envoy Will Realize Futility of Peace Talks with Houthis

Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani. (Getty Images)
Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani. (Getty Images)

Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani said that his government was awaiting United Nations special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths’ invitation to attend consultations in Geneva in September.

He stressed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the legitimate government was prepared to “go all the way” with the talks.

The envoy will eventually reach a personal conviction that peace cannot be reached with the Iran-backed Houthis, he added, noting that his predecessor, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, made the same conclusion and announced it before the UN Security Council.

Efforts to build trust must be exerted before taking any measures and this message was clearly delivered to Griffiths by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.

These efforts must include the release of prisoners and delivery of aid, which is being looted on a daily basis by the Houthis, he explained.

“There are many trust-building steps that we had spoken about in Geneva and at the Kuwait talks in the past, but the Houthis did not agree to them,” he said.

Furthermore, Yamani said that the Houthis are using children and civilian detainees and captives as human shields.

This was demonstrated during last week’s bus attack in Saada, he noted. The militias know that the Saudi-led Arab coalition would not target a bus that is transporting children.

“Much has been said about this incident despite a lack of real information. This region does not have schools, so where did the children come from? Where were they going?” he asked.

“As I mentioned, the militias are using children as shields, to protect them from coalition strikes, in violation of international law,” the minister charged. The West is choosing to ignore these facts.

On whether the government would reject Griffiths’ invitation to attend the Geneva consultations should the agenda include articles it does not want to discuss, Yamani said: “We should not get ahead of ourselves.”

He recalled how the government had previously warned Ould Cheikh against believing the Houthis, citing that their leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, had been blacklisted.

“We had explained to him that these gangs would not yield to the peace conditions because they are a product of Iranian experts and [Lebanon’s] ‘Hezbollah’,” he said.

In addition, he stressed that his government refuses to discuss the proposal on the Hodeidah province at the Geneva meeting.

It will not hold negotiations over this issue because the Houthis have so far refused to withdraw from the province. The main condition in the Hodeidah proposal revolves around the militias’ pullout.

“Why are they rejecting the proposal? The government will present this question to the international community,” Yamani added to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Moreover, he said that Griffiths must take into consideration the consultations that had taken place in Kuwait in 2016.

“We were on the verge of reaching a comprehensive agreement …., but the Houthis, at Iran’s instruction, withdrew from the negotiations and refused to sign the agreement,” he noted.

Addressing foreign meddling in Yemen’s affairs, Yamani said that his ministry was exerting major efforts to confront this interference, especially in regards to Lebanon.

The foreign ministry had filed a complaint to Beirut in July over “Hezbollah’s” meddling in Yemen and was planning on filing lawsuits against all Houthi media outlets operating in Lebanon.

These outlets, he said, were operating illegally and backed by “Hezbollah”.

He noted that the Lebanese political class overwhelmingly supports Yemen and “we will therefore, exercise our right to defend our interests to the end. We cannot allow the terrorist ‘Hezbollah’ to carry out such actions.”



Hochstein to Asharq Al-Awsat: Land Border Demarcation between Lebanon, Israel ‘is Within Reach’

AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon
AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon
TT
20

Hochstein to Asharq Al-Awsat: Land Border Demarcation between Lebanon, Israel ‘is Within Reach’

AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon
AFP file photo of Amos Hochstein speaking to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, Lebanon

The former US special envoy, Amos Hochstein, said the maritime border agreement struck between Lebanon and Israel in 2022 and the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hezbollah at the end of last year show that a land border demarcation “is within reach.”

“We can get to a deal but there has to be political willingness,” he said.

“The agreement of the maritime boundary was unique because we’d been trying to work on it for over 10 years,” Hochstein told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“I understood that a simple diplomatic push for a line was not going to work. It had to be a more complicated and comprehensive agreement. And there was a real threat that people didn’t realize that if we didn’t reach an agreement we would have ended up in a conflict - in a hot conflict - or war over resources.”

He said there is a possibility to reach a Lebanese-Israeli land border agreement because there’s a “provision that mandated the beginning of talks on the land boundary.”

“I believe with concerted effort they can be done quickly,” he said, adding: “It is within reach.”

Hochstein described communication with Hezbollah as “complicated,” saying “I never had only one interlocutor with Hezbollah .... and the first step is to do shuttle diplomacy between Lebanon, Lebanon and Lebanon, and then you had to go to Israel and do shuttle diplomacy between the different factions” there.

“The reality of today and the reality of 2022 are different. Hezbollah had a lock on the political system in Lebanon in the way it doesn’t today.”

North of Litani

The 2024 ceasefire agreement requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and for the Lebanese army to take full operational control of the south Litani region, all the way up to the border. It requires Hezbollah to demilitarize and move further north of the Litani region, he said.

“I don’t want to get into the details of other violations,” he said, but stated that the ceasefire works if both conditions are met.

Lebanon’s opportunity

“Lebanon can rewrite its future ... but it has to be a fundamental change,” he said.

“There is so much potential in Lebanon and if you can bring back opportunity and jobs - and through economic and legal reforms in the country - I think that the future is very bright,” Hochstein told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Hezbollah is not trying to control the politics and remember that Hezbollah is just an arm of Iran” which “should not be imposing its political will in Lebanon, Israel should not be imposing its military will in Lebanon, Syria should not. No one should. This a moment for Lebanon to make decisions for itself,” he added.