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Bahsani: Yemen’s Presidential Council will Seek to Achieve Stability in North, South

Major General Faraj Salmin al-Bahsani, member of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council
Major General Faraj Salmin al-Bahsani, member of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council
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Bahsani: Yemen’s Presidential Council will Seek to Achieve Stability in North, South

Major General Faraj Salmin al-Bahsani, member of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council
Major General Faraj Salmin al-Bahsani, member of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council

Major General Faraj Salmin al-Bahsani, member of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council, confirmed that the council will lead the stage in the North and the South towards stability, calling for placing the national project above any other considerations.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Bahsani noted that a draft roadmap was currently being discussed and included a first phase of six months to stabilize the ceasefire, then a preparation stage of three months, followed by a transitional phase that extends over two years to discuss the form of the state.

He also stressed that Saudi Arabia was leading the process of rapprochement between the Yemeni legitimacy and the Houthi group, based on good neighborliness and brotherhood between the two countries, expressing his confidence that the Kingdom would continue to stand by the Presidential Leadership Council and the legitimate government.

Bahsani said, however, that the proposed draft peace map “collided at the beginning with the intransigence of the Houthi militia, which practices the Iranian method of procrastination.”

“These militias do not care about ending the war or the suffering of the people through regional and international opportunities to bring peace to Yemen. All they want from the war and the coup against the state is to control the institutions and seize power,” he underlined.

According to Bahsani, the most important axes of “the draft peace map include a first phase of six months, in which the ceasefire is established and other measures are taken without the militia’s intervention.”

Those measures seek to facilitate commercial activity and the citizens’ movement in areas controlled by the Houthis.

“As for the second phase, it will last for three months, during which the plans and programs for the transitional phase will be prepared,” he underlined.

The member of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council stated that Saudi Arabia was leading the process of rapprochement between the legitimacy and the Houthis, pointing out that neither the council nor the legitimate government participated in any direct dialogues with the Houthi militia.

He also stressed that the Saudi-Iranian agreement signed on March 10 will reflect positively on major regional files, including Yemen.

“Saudi Arabia puts all its diplomatic weight to solve this file with the Republic of Iran and to stop Tehran’s backing of the Houthi militia,” Bahsani told Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that the Houthis used this support “to kill the Yemeni people and tamper with the stability of the region as a whole, not just Yemen.”

The member of the Presidential Leadership Council emphasized that the war was not over yet, and that the Yemeni army was ready for the worst possibilities if the Houthis insisted on a new round of fighting.

With regards to the peace efforts led by Saudi Arabia, the UN envoy and a number of “brotherly and friendly” countries that took place during the past years, the Houthi group has constantly renounced these agreements, Bahsani said.

“This is what made the legitimacy demand guarantees for the implementation of any future agreements,” he added.

The Yemeni official expressed his doubts over the commitment of the Houthi group to the peace map. On the other hand, he noted that the structure of the state and the fate of the Yemenis will be decided in the North and the South during the upcoming arrangements.

“Thus, it will be a great responsibility for the brothers in the North to get rid of these militias and their weapons, and as southerners, we will be supportive of any role in this regard,” he remarked.

According to Bahsani, the Presidencial Council was able to complete many achievements since its formation, mainly restructuring and reactivating the judiciary, reviving efforts to advance the peace process and consolidate stability in the liberated governorates, and addressing many issues within the military.

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Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
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Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich has told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US does not plan to withdraw its forces from Syria.

The US is committed to “the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with,” he said.

Here is the full text of the interview.

Question: Mr. Goldrich, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us today. I know you are leaving your post soon. How do you assess the accomplishments and challenges remaining?

Answer: Thank you very much for the chance to talk with you today. I've been in this position for three years, and so at the end of three years, I can see that there's a lot that we accomplished and a lot that we have left to do. But at the beginning of a time I was here, we had just completed a review of our Syria policy, and we saw that we needed to focus on reducing suffering for the people in Syria. We needed to reduce violence. We needed to hold the regime accountable for things that are done and most importantly, from the US perspective, we needed to keep ISIS from reemerging as a threat to our country and to other countries. At the same time, we also realized that there wouldn't be a solution to the crisis until there was a political process under resolution 2254, so in each of these areas, we've seen both progress and challenges, but of course, on ISIS, we have prevented the reemergence of the threat from northeast Syria, and we've helped deal with people that needed to be repatriated out of the prisons, and we dealt with displaced people in al-Hol to reduce the numbers there. We helped provide for stabilization in those parts of Syria.

Question: I want to talk a little bit about the ISIS situation now that the US troops are still there, do you envision a timeline where they will be withdrawn? Because there were some reports in the press that there is a plan from the Biden administration to withdraw.

Answer: Yeah. So right now, our focus is on the mission that we have there to keep ISIS from reemerging. So I know there have been reports, but I want to make clear that we remain committed to the role that we play in that part of Syria, to the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with, and to the need to prevent that threat from reemerging.

Question: So you can assure people who are saying that you might withdraw, that you are remaining for the time being?

Answer: Yes, and that we remain committed to this mission which needs to continue to be pursued.

Question: You also mentioned the importance of humanitarian aid. The US has been leading on this. Are you satisfied with where you are today on the humanitarian front in Syria?

Answer: We remain committed to the role that we play to provide for humanitarian assistance in Syria. Of the money that was pledged in Brussels, we pledged $593 million just this past spring, and we overall, since the beginning of the conflict, have provided $18 billion both to help the Syrians who are inside of Syria and to help the refugees who are in surrounding countries. And so we remain committed to providing that assistance, and we remain keenly aware that 90% of Syrians are living in poverty right now, and that there's been suffering there. We're doing everything we can to reduce the suffering, but I think where we would really like to be is where there's a larger solution to the whole crisis, so Syrian people someday will be able to provide again for themselves and not need this assistance.

Question: And that's a perfect key to my next question. Solution in Syria. you are aware that the countries in the region are opening up to Assad again, and you also have the EU signaling overture to the Syrian regime and Assad. How do you deal with that?

Answer: For the United States, our policy continues to be that we will not normalize with the regime in Syria until there's been authentic and enduring progress on the goals of resolution 2254, until the human rights of the Syrian people are respected and until they have the civil and human rights that they deserve. We know other countries have engaged with the regime. When those engagements happen, we don't support them, but we remind the countries that are engaged that they should be using their engagements to push forward on the shared international goals under 2254, and that whatever it is that they're doing should be for the sake of improving the situation of the Syrian people.

Question: Let's say that all of the countries decided to talk to Assad, aren’t you worried that the US will be alienated in the process?

Answer: The US will remain true to our own principles and our own policies and our own laws, and the path for the regime in Syria to change its relationship with us is very clear, if they change the behaviors that led to the laws that we have and to the policies that we have, if those behaviors change and the circumstances inside of Syria change, then it's possible to have a different kind of relationship, but that's where it has to start.

Question: My last question to you before you leave, if you have to pick one thing that you need to do in Syria today, what is it that you would like to see happening today?

Answer: So there are a number of things, I think that will always be left and that there are things that we will try to do, to try to make them happen. We want to hold people accountable in Syria for things that have happened. So even today, we observed something called the International Day for victims of enforced disappearances, there are people that are missing, and we're trying to draw attention to the need to account for the missing people. So our step today was to sanction a number of officials who were responsible for enforced disappearances, but we also created something called the independent institution for missing persons, and that helps the families, in the non-political way, get information on what's happened. So I'd like to see some peace for the families of the missing people. I'd like to see the beginning of a political process, there hasn't been a meeting of the constitutional committee in two years, and I think that's because the regime has not been cooperating in political process steps. So we need to change that situation. And I would, of course, like it's important to see the continuation of the things that we were talking about, so keeping ISIS from reemerging and maintaining assistance as necessary in the humanitarian sphere. So all these things, some of them are ongoing, and some of them remain to be achieved. But the Syrian people deserve all aspects of our policy to be fulfilled and for them to be able to return to a normal life.