Saudi-backed Yemeni delegates head to Sweden for peace talks

A delegation from Yemen’s former Saudi-sponsored government has left Riyadh for Sweden to attend UN-brokered peace talks with representatives from the Ansarullah movement as a push by the world body to end a devastating Saudi-led war on Yemen gains steam.

The 12-member team headed by ex-foreign minister Khaled al-Yamani departed the Saudi capital Riyadh early Wednesday, a day after the Ansarullah's delegation, accompanied by UN peace envoy Martin Griffiths, landed in Stockholm.

The delegation represents the government of ex-Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The push gained momentum due to a global outrage directed at the Saudi regime over the gruesome assassination in early October of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which is being widely blamed on the architect of the Yemen war, Saudi Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman.

Under growing international pressure, Riyadh and its allies ultimately submitted to Ansarullah’s demands and returned to the negotiating table for the first time since 2016 in the hope of finding a way out of the war, which has failed to achieve its objectives of reinstalling Hadi and undermining the Ansarullah movement.

Hadi had resigned as Yemen’s president and fled to Riyadh months before the Saudi war began. In the absence of an effective government, Ansarullah has been both running state affairs and defending the country against the Saudi-led aggression.

The Ansarullah’s arrival in Sweden followed two major confidence boosting measures -- a prisoner swap deal and the transfer of 50 wounded Ansarullah fighters from Sana’a to Oman for treatment.

On Tuesday, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the spokesman and chief negotiator for the Ansarullah movement, wrote on his official Twitter page that the Ansarullah “will spare no effort to make a success of the talks to restore peace and end the aggression.”

At the same time, Ansarullah officials called on Ansarullah fighters to remain “vigilant against any attempt at a military escalation on the ground.”

SS