The situation in Yemen after Saudi Arabia put forward an initiative for reconciliation of the separatists in the South and the Central government is unstable and could collapse as easily as in the past year because the parties have not resolved important questions of principle, says researcher of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies, an expert of the Russian Council for International Affairs Grigoriy Lukyanov.
Earlier, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said that the separatists in southern Yemen and the Central government agreed to the Kingdom's proposed new mechanism for implementing the Riyadh agreement concluded in November last year, which provides for the creation of a new government with candidates from the South and North within 30 days. Separatists from the South Yemeni Transitional Council on Wednesday announced the rejection of their self-government in seven southern provinces of Yemen in response to the initiative of Saudi Arabia.
According to the expert, the agreement was preceded by lengthy consultations and many measures taken primarily by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to find a compromise with each other.
"However, this agreement is largely a forced measure designed to restart the political process that has clearly stalled and is a result of the parties' awareness that direct confrontation between them has an extremely negative impact on attempts to somehow change the current stalemate, " Lukyanov told RIA Novosti.
He noted that Saudi Arabia was negotiating with the UAE and the Transitional Council of South Yemen, because it was forced to do so because of the changed general economic situation, the situation with the coronavirus and world oil prices, and not because of a change in the country's position in the conflict.
"Therefore, this structure, in my opinion, still looks very unstable and very fragile," Lukyanov said.
According to him, the situation is complicated by the fact that the government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi can not rely on the armed Islamist formations of the al-Islah party and not cooperate with local branches of the terrorist groups banned in the Russian Federation, ISIS* and al-Qaeda*. "This is a significant military force that controls a considerable territory, has serious military resources and plays a serious role in the fight against the Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis," Lukyanov said.
"And since no compromise has yet been reached in relations with the Houthis, there is no compromise, military actions against the Houthis continue, in this regard, the dependence on the al-Islah party and other Islamists will continue. This is unacceptable for the UAE and the Southern Transitional Council, for which the fight against al-Islah is as important a component of the fight against Islamism as the fight against the Ansar Allah movement, against the Houthis," the expert said.
As Lukyanov stressed, since this important issue of principle has not been resolved, as well as the issue of sharing revenues from oil fields in the South of the country, the issue of the political structure of the state in the future has not been resolved, now the settlement is only at the beginning of the path that the UAE and Saudi Arabia would like to start.
"For a long time they did not succeed. We cannot say that there has been a fundamental change. We can only say that the parties managed to come to a more or less unified beginning, but all this can fall apart as easily as it fell apart a year ago in 2019," the expert believes.
"The situation, in my opinion, remains very fragile and depends not only on the good will of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but also on the split that persists in Yemeni society at the moment. All this is aggravated by the situation with COVID-19, " the expert concluded.
The separatists seized power in Aden, which became the temporary capital of the territories liberated by government forces from the Houthis, in August last year. Despite the Riyadh agreement, they continued to consolidate their power in the South of the country, driving government supporters out of military bases and government offices.
* Terrorist organizations banned in Russia.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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