4. The Current Context
Little progress was made after the Kerry talks. Frustration with and criticism of Ould Cheikh Ahmed – who in August 2017 was asked to extend his role as UN special envoy until February 2018 – have been rising among diplomats. Key issues among officials interviewed for this paper,80 and expressed at Chatham House workshops in The Hague, London and at the Dead Sea in 2016 and 2017, include: a lack of responsiveness by the envoy and his team to what they see as clear barriers to peace; his failure to build relationships with key individuals in the Houthi–Saleh alliance; and his over-reliance on assurances that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are willing and able to deliver a political settlement when the time is right.
‘The UN has a wonderful technical plan that makes a lot of sense on paper as a document, but if no one agrees to it, then there is no deal,’ said a senior Western diplomat.81 ‘Usually in these kinds of situations you don’t develop the perfect plan and wait for everyone to agree with it; you mediate, negotiate, and get into the fine details with the parties, work out what is going to get the job done.’82
Said another Western official: ‘[The envoy] spends a great deal of time in the Gulf states, and meets the Hadi people regularly, but is hardly ever in Sana’a and has very little real contact with the Houthis in particular.’ The official estimated that the UN envoy had spent a total of around two weeks in Sana’a since the war broke out, and several months in the Gulf. ‘In Yemen, the personal relationships and trust are important, and he has not been able to build that trust.’83 Other diplomats question whether or not the UN’s close coordination with the so-called ‘Quint’ – which is made up of the UK, the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman – has undermined its standing with the Houthis and Saleh loyalists.
Box 3: The Quad, the Quint, Iran and Russia
In July 2016, a first meeting was held in Saudi Arabia between representatives of the self-described ‘Quad’ – consisting of the US, the UK, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The group said it had convened to discuss the best way of resolving the crisis in Yemen. The group was later expanded, at the insistence of the US and the UK, to include Oman, which had acted as a quiet mediator between the Houthis and others, bringing key officials from Sana’a to Muscat.
The Quad was criticized for presenting itself as an impartial international working group that ‘hoped to end the war’. In November 2016, it held meetings that included UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, after which, several diplomats say, his engagement with the Houthi–Saleh alliance deteriorated significantly.
‘Regrettably, they – the four countries – invited the UN special envoy to their meetings. And that undermined the impartiality of the UN,’ said a senior diplomat who was working on Yemen at the time. The same official argued that the peace process should include a greater focus on UN discussions with Iran and Russia.
Diplomats subsequently involved in the Quint process countered that Houthis and Saleh insiders acknowledge the need to negotiate with Saudi Arabia and the UAE in order to end the conflict, and that the Quint offers a rare opportunity for the UK, the US and the UN to address key issues with Abu Dhabi and Riyadh at the same time.
The UN envoy has also come under criticism for not doing more to engage with and work on mechanisms to integrate a broader range of voices into the mediation process, particularly given the evolving political geography of the conflict and the multiplicity of fault lines within Yemen. A Chatham House policy workshop in the UK in May 2017 brought together expert analysts, international development specialists and policymakers to discuss the status of the peace process. Participants broadly agreed that the peace process required recalibration so as to include the necessary incentives for each actor in the war to participate. This in turn would require a better understanding of each actor’s perspectives and agenda. The UN and international community need to find a way to address the issue of the south of Yemen in particular, delegates argued.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed, however, appears to believe that he has the right calibration for a peace process, but that the players involved are not ready for peace. His office saw the Houthi–Saleh alliance, in particular, as a barrier to a deal, in part because of its refusal to re-engage in UN-facilitated de-escalation committees and also because of a security incident during the envoy’s last visit to Sana’a in May 2017.84 Yet with the Houthis, who from the outset of the war have adopted a hard-line stance on negotiations, while consolidating their power in highland and western Yemen, it will likely be even harder to reach an accord if key military leaders within the movement are not engaged and enrolled in the process.
Officials close to the UN process acknowledge that it could also be derailed by resistance from key groups that have not been involved in it to date. These include Islah and its tribal and military allies; key southern factions; and militias (including Salafist groups) fighting in Taiz. The grievances and agendas of these various actors are only to be addressed once a unity government has been formed and the National Body-based committee has been established, UN officials say.
Box 4: Back-room dealmaking
Since 2015, rumours have persisted among Yemeni elites and foreign officials that an informal back-room deal to end the war outside of formal UN channels was under consideration, and that such a deal would involve one or both members of the Houthi–Saleh alliance and the chief players in the Saudi-led coalition, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE. According to one person with close ties to the Saleh family, the UAE-led liberation of Aden was part of a broader deal negotiated between the UAE and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s inner circle. Under the deal, the Houthi–Saleh alliance would withdraw from Aden and then negotiate a peace deal on preferential terms. However, the Houthis, according to this account, refused to withdraw or take part in the agreement. Even before the conflict began, according to a Saudi official, Riyadh had quietly sanctioned back-channel talks with the Houthis over a settlement that would involve them renouncing Iran and giving Saudi Arabia assurances over border security in exchange for support for a unity government in Sana’a. The talks were abandoned when King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud ascended to the throne, the official said.
In 2016, Houthi representatives entered into negotiations with Saudi officials over a deal that would have entailed a de-escalation of attacks along the border – itself a precursor to a wider deal – and Houthi leaders again publicly calling for Iran to stay out of Yemeni affairs as part of a campaign of signalling. This initiative also failed, possibly because it was promoted by the then crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, a rival to Mohammed bin Salman, who was at the time deputy crown prince.
In mid-2017, officials from the General People’s Congress (GPC), diplomats and other international officials confirmed to the author that Saleh and the GPC had discussed the contours of a deal with UAE officials, but that the deal had not been accepted by the ultimate decision-maker in Riyadh, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saleh’s decision in late 2017 to split definitively from the Houthis – and to call for a ‘new page’ in relations between his party, the GPC and the Saudi-led coalition – may well have been a precondition for such a deal. If this was the case, it backfired.