Yemen

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…

On February 1, 2021, the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies and Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) concluded a series of meetings with several Yemeni political parties during which they shared their visions of the peace negotiations and explored possible ways to end the six-year conflict in Yemen. Sponsored by the EU and held in Istanbul, the meetings included separate sit-downs with…

A group of prominent tribal leaders from Yemen convened in Istanbul on January 20th and January 21st to discuss the role of tribes in local and national de-escalation and peacemaking to bring an end to the war in Yemen. Sheikhs and tribal women from key governorates identified recommendations for UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffith and agreed on a…

Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdelmalek Saeed said on Friday that missiles that struck a runway at Aden international airport December 30, 2020, were an attempt by the armed Houthi movement to target the airplane carrying members of the new government that had just landed. The prime minister’s remarks came as part of a Yemen Media Call briefing held by the…

In September, the Yemeni rial’s recent decline accelerated precipitously, with the currency’s value dropping to record lows by month’s end. While the rial has been under multiple, intensifying pressures stemming from the war for several years, a large increase in the money supply – through a 30 percent increase in civil servant salaries – and the collapse of peace talks last month appear to have spurred a rial sell-off in the market. A nation-wide fuel shortage ensued. Retail fuel stations…

In the last six days of August the Yemeni rial entered one of its steepest and most rapid declines in value since the conflict began, resulting in sudden price spikes for basic foodstuffs. Given Yemen’s overwhelming dependence on imports to feed the population, such changes in the rial’s value have direct implications for the country’s humanitarian crisis.

At the end of July the Yemen conflict seemed poised to take on much broader regional and global dimensions, as Saudi Arabia halted oil shipments through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait off Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Iran declared the sea “no longer secure,” and Israel threatened military intervention if Houthi forces attempted to close the strait to shipping (see ‘Riyadh Halts…