Participants at the Yemen consultations, currently underway in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have warned against wasting opportunities, a policy that has led to the squandering of previous efforts to overcome sharp divisions and unite ranks.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is sponsoring the consultations that kicked off on Wednesday and will conclude on April 7. The consultations are the largest since the coup carried out by the Iran-backed Houthi militias against the legitimate government in 2014.
The participants urged the need to seize the opportunity of meeting in Riyadh to bolster efforts and initiatives aimed at ending the war and suffering of the Yemeni people.
The consultations continued for a second day on Thursday with attempts to break the ice, bridge divides and pave the way for national understandings.
Political analyst Dr. Abdul Malik al-Yousefi said the main theme throughout the past seven years has been "wasted opportunities".
There are fears that the Riyadh consultations will be yet another wasted opportunity that the Yemenis fail to seize, he explained.
"We hope the consultations will materialize into a sincere will and real diagnosis of the current problems," he added, hoping that the gatherers would reach understandings to political, development, economic and relief issues at hand.
This would in turn lead to a comprehensive solution with the Houthis should the will to establish peace be there, he remarked.
The battle in Yemen goes beyond the military field, said al-Yousefi, citing deep political disputes, which the Houthis are exploiting in their favor.
So far at the consultations, he has seen a "serious" desire to reach sustainable peace.
