Saudi Arabia

Yemen Review section August 12, 2022 10:32 MIN July 2022 Truce Extended Until October 2 By Casey Coombs On August 2, the parties to the conflict agreed to a two-month truce extension under the existing terms. The deal comes after intensive shuttle diplomacy by the UN and the US, and the arrival of an Omani delegation to Sana’a on July 31. The extension includes a commitment by the parties to work toward an expanded, six-month truce, which UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg failed to secure amid mutual suspicion and disagreements over the phased reopening of four roads (two in Al-Dhalea, one in Sa’ada, and the Sofitel road in Taiz city), payment of public sector salaries in Houthi-held areas, and the expansion of flights from Sana’a airport to include India, Cairo, Amman, and Doha. Grundberg also proposed the creation… Continue reading Analysis June 6, 2022 15:40 MIN Resolving the Yemen-Saudi Border Problem: Time To Revive the Joint Committees By Muhsin Ramadan, and Tawfeek Al-Ganad The question of border demarcation has been one of the most contentious issues in the historical relationship between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Border disputes have been at the heart of many of the tensions between the two countries over the past century. They fought over the border in 1934, resulting in the Treaty of Taif, a non-permanent agreement that reflected the will of Saudi Arabia. But the border was to remain a source of conflict into the 1990s, which saw a number of military skirmishes. When an international agreement eventually ending the dispute was signed in 2000, a series of joint Saudi-Yemeni committees were established to examine security and development issues related to the border, such as watchtowers, joint patrols… Continue reading Analysis April 7, 2022 02:54 MIN Money Exchangers Eye Windfall from Rial’s Recent Gains By Wadhah Al-Awlaqi The value of Yemeni rials increased dramatically today, April 7, following the announcement of US$3 billion in new Saudi and Emirati support for the internationally recognized Yemeni government. However, there are strong signs already from the money market that the rebound will be temporary. Consultations in Riyadh between Yemeni parties to the anti-Houthi coalition and Gulf Cooperation Council states yielded major results in the past 24 hours, with Yemeni President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi replaced by a presidential council and Vice President Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar sacked. Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates committed US$1 billion each in new support to the government-controlled Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) in Aden, while Saudi Arabia committed a further US$1 billion in… Continue reading Publications April 7, 2022 07:51 MIN March 2022 Military and Security A March wave of Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabian energy installations and retaliatory coalition airstrikes stopped, at least temporarily, with the April 1 announcement of the first nationwide truce of the war. The cease-fire took effect April 2, the start of the holy month of Ramadan, and was agreed to last two months, during which time military operations, including cross-border attacks, would halt and blockades on Hudaydah port and Sana’a airport would ease. The truce followed a month of an intensified air war. Houthi authorities said their missile and drone strikes were aimed at ending the Saudi-led coalition blockade on Houthi-controlled northern Yemen – a set of trade and travel restrictions that prevent the Houthis from controlling access to northern… Continue reading Analysis March 30, 2022 05:09 MIN March 2022 Yemen and Saudi Part II: A Future of Neighborly Relations By Abdulghani Al-Iryani For seven decades, leaders and pundits from Yemen and Saudi Arabia have capitalized on the differences and conflicting interests between the two nations to advocate adversarial, often antagonistic relations and policies. Incompatibilities pointed out between the two states typically include republic vs. monarchy, poor vs. rich, left-leaning vs. right-leaning, chaotic vs. stable, etc. So, while Yemen depended and continues to depend on remittances from its migrant workers in Saudi Arabia for its economic survival, and Saudi Arabia depended on cheap Yemeni labor for its initial construction boom through the 1970s and ‘80s, and for a large portion of the service sector until today, the trajectory of the relationship between the two states has been heading toward a clash. A quick… Continue reading Analysis March 27, 2022 17:34 MIN The Best of Intentions: How the Biden Administration Tried and Failed to End the War in Yemen By Gregory D. Johnsen The Biden administration took office on January 20, 2021, determined to end the war in Yemen. On the campaign trail, candidate Biden had promised not to “sell more weapons” to Saudi Arabia, explaining that Saudi airstrikes in Yemen were “murdering children” and “innocent people.” Biden referred to Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” and said that it needed “to be held accountable” for its actions in Yemen. Biden’s campaign pledge was designed to be a sharp break with the previous two administrations. Both the Obama administration – in which Biden served as vice president – and the Trump administration had, in one way or another, backed the Saudi-led coalition and its war in Yemen. But six years into a war that… Continue reading The Yemen Review March 3, 2022 279:55 MIN The Graveyard of Hubris – Yemen Annual Review 2021 Through most of 2021, the armed Houthi movement appeared unstoppable. As their forces pushed relentlessly toward Marib city, the fall of the last government stronghold in the north began to seem inevitable. Rich in oil and gas, its loss would be a mortal blow to the spiraling economy and political legitimacy of the internationally recognized government. Along frontlines across the country, Houthi forces either held their ground or advanced, showing a cohesiveness, discipline and effectiveness unmatched by the motley array of armed groups opposing them. Houthi drones and ballistic missiles flew across the border into Saudi Arabia, and continued even in the face of retaliatory airstrikes, heightening the cost of conflict for the coalition. Houthi military efforts were buttressed by… Continue reading Analysis January 17, 2022 30:42 MIN Saudi Arabia’s Role in Southern Yemen By Hussam Radman Close engagement with Yemen has been one of the fundamentals of Saudi foreign policy since modern Saudi Arabia was established in 1932. Saudi policy toward Yemen has been shaped by four basic factors: Yemen’s foreign and domestic policy; regional and international developments; the nature of the Saudi regime and its decision-making mechanisms; and the political and security consequences of having a long, shared border. Saudi Arabia has experienced three major political events to its south: the 1962 revolution in North Yemen, the rise of the socialist regime in South Yemen in 1967, and the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990. Riyadh employed a range of soft power tools including a network of local alliances, dispensing economic aid, and… Continue reading Analysis July 16, 2021 04:39 MIN The View from Iran after Raisi’s Election By Adnan Tabatabai Early this year, months before Iran held its presidential elections, significant security talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia were held in Baghdad. Security and military officials from both countries reportedly met at least three times. Little is known about the actual substance of the talks, other than that they involved Yemen-related affairs. But the composition of the delegations on each side suggests these talks were genuine and substantive. While it is inaccurate to view Iranian-Saudi tension as the sole driver of all armed conflict in the Middle East, peace talks between the two could go a long way toward solving some of the most pressing regional issues such as the war in Yemen, the situations in Syria and Iraq as… Continue reading The Yemen Review July 14, 2021 94:51 MIN Eye on the East – The Yemen Review, June 2021 Through periods of tolerance and persecution, marginalization has remained a constant in the treatment of racial and religious minorities in Yemeni society. During the ongoing conflict, however, violence and subjugation against these marginalized groups has increased dramatically, to the point that it is fundamentally reshaping Yemeni society. For Yemen as we know it to continue to exist it needs to assure the existence of its minorities, as something fundamental to the makeup of a nation dies when its minorities perish. Yemen’s Jewish community, with a history tracing back millennia, played a foundational role in developing Yemeni culture and commerce, and creating much of the artisanal industries for which the country is known. While the community had already been dwindling in… Continue reading News May 10, 2021 02:33 MIN Director of the Office of the President of Yemen: We are ready for direct negotiations with the Houthis Director of the Office of the President of Yemen, Abdullah Al-Alimi, said during the Yemen Media Call – a media briefing session organized by the Sana’a Center– that Yemen’s internationally recognized government was ready to go into direct negotiations with the armed Houthi movement, adding that it was also in favor of reopening Sana’a airport as well the port of Hudaydah as part of a Houthi ceasefire. He added that the government was not represented in the recent Muscat meetings, and said that the armed Houthi movement insists on escalating hostilities in Marib and politicizing the humanitarian file. He also accused the Houthis of thwarting recent negotiations led by UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths and US Special Envoy… Continue reading Analysis October 22, 2020 56:41 MIN Marib: A Yemeni Government Stronghold Increasingly Vulnerable to Houthi Advances By Casey Coombs, and Ali Al-Sakani Marib, a centrally-located governorate connecting Al-Bayda, Shabwa, Hadramawt, Al-Jawf and Sana’a, has undergone a drastic transformation since the war started in 2015, emerging as a booming economic, social, political and military center. Natural resources including irrigation from the Marib dam and oil and gas reserves were instrumental in building a bustling metropolis in Marib city over a short period. But it was the autonomy afforded by decentralization under Governor Sultan al-Aradah that harnessed those resources for local development. Obtaining its share of the national gas and oil revenues, for example, has helped fund the improvement of infrastructure, pay civil servants' salaries and build government institutions. Though hardly insulated from the war, Marib has become a haven for displaced people and… Continue reading