Alwaght- On Sunday, an Omani delegation arrived in the Yemeni capital Sana'a for talks with the revolutionary Supreme Political Council led by Ansarullah to discus lifting the six-year Saudi blockade and also halt of Riyadh-led Arab coalition's aggression on Yemen.
Lebanon's Al-Manar news network broke the news and then Al-Mayadeen, also a Lebanese broadcaster, reported that the delegation was sent by Sultanate of Oman.
A Yemeni Foreign Ministry official confirmed the news without elaborating on the purpose of the trip, but some Yemeni media outlets speculated that Muscat, under pressure of the US, Britain, and Saudi Arabia, was doing its best to force the Yemenis into a deal.
Omani delegation Yemen visit follows UN failure
The noteworthy point is that the visit to the Yemeni capital is following declaration of failure of the UN special representative Martin Griffiths who sought a deal to stop the Saudi aggression on the war-weary neighboring nation.
Last week, Griffiths, who traveled to Sana'a, admitted before leaving that his push for peace in Yemen went nowhere.
While acknowledging the failure of his efforts to establish a ceasefire in Yemen, Griffiths said that the UN made many efforts to establish a nationwide ceasefire in Yemen, but these efforts did not bear fruit.
He said he discussed several times with Yemeni and Saudi officials the ceasefire deal. The issue was raised also in Muscat. But no results were produced.
"Unfortunately, we are not where we would like to be in reaching a deal. Meanwhile, the war has continued unabated, causing immense suffering to the civilian population," he was cited as saying.
He added: "It is unfair to deprive Yemenis of the hope that their suffering will end in the near future, just as it is unfair to deprive them of the opportunity to have a brighter future. No one can be more disappointed than I am. Our demand is clear; end of war."
US pressures for Yemen truce
Given the timing of the Omani delegation travel to Yemen which followed the UN efforts fall, many analysts suggest that this visit is a continuation to ongoing President Joe Biden's pressing towards cessation of conflict.
Exactly one week before the Omani delegation's visit, the US Special Representative to Yemen Timothy Linderking visited Saudi Arabia and Oman, and possibly several other countries, and met with leaders of the Persian Gulf monarchies and some European countries to discuss an end to war. He claimed it was "fundamental" for the US to see Yemeni economy back on the track and blockade lifted.
"It is a fundamental pillar of the United States that all economic arteries, all ports, all airports in Yemen should be open for commerce and for the access for vital humanitarian supplies. So any blockages, any restrictions placed on the flow of goods into Yemen, which are vital both for the economy and for the people of Yemen, we oppose. And we call on the parties both to keep the – to ensure that these vital arteries are open, and also to ensure that once on the ground and off-loaded, that any supplies and commodities are able to move to their destinations without any obstruction."
Prior to him, Secretary of State Antony Blinken had insisted the need to accomplish a peace deal in Yemen. He claimed that Washington sought peace in Yemen. The comments by the American officials are coming while since 2015 no initiative found its way to realization to settle the crisis. Washington assists the operations and provides the Saudi alliance with arms for its devastating campaign against Yemen, now in its seventh year.
Actually, the American diplomats make pro-peace claims while Saudi Arabia continues the war on Western strength. Washington has never seriously asked Riyadh to stop its bombardment which mainly targets the Yemeni civilians and infrastructure.
Where is Yemen ceasefire impasse?
What seems to have so far made ineffective the claimed actions of the UN, the US and other Western countries for achieving a ceasefire is their unilateral pressure on Sana'a to accept a ceasefire without a real cessation of bombing and siege on the Yemeni people. In other words, the Western proposals and initiatives for a ceasefire in Yemen do not offer any solution to end the siege of the country by Saudi Arabia, and in all ceasefire initiatives, the inhumane land, sea and air blockade remains off the list of necessities to end the crisis. The freedom of access of the victims of the Saudi aggression to food and healthcare is the most basic right in any truce, but has so far been put in the back burner despite much-trumpeted peace efforts by the West and the UN. More clearly, what has so far been given as peace proposals are in fact Saudi demands—revealing the bias of the West and even the UN in addressing the crisis.
The last US peace proposal, offered by Linderking in March, bore no demands to Saudi Arabia for end of blockade or bombardment.
Rather, it was a remaking of the older Saudi demands to give siege an official face. One term stipulated that the Saudi-led coalition will determine the destination of flights from Sana'a airport. The proposal was strongly rejected by the Yemenis.
The Biden administration's rush for Yemen truce follows game-changing progress made by Ansarullah and the army units in Ma'rib, a strategic northern province where last units of pro-Hadi militias and their Saudi backers still have positions.
The American pro-Saudi stances are as old as the Saudi war. Under President Barack Obama, in whose administration Joe Biden was vice president, Washington openly voiced support to the Operation Decisive Storm launched by the Arab alliance on Yemen in March 2015. A New York Times article disclosed that since the beginning of war, the US sent an aircraft carrier and guided missile cruisers to help the Arab kingdom implement Yemen blockade. The US-supplied bombs have targeted workshops, bridges, routes, hospitals, water sources, wedding ceremonies, gatherings, and school buses carrying Yemeni kids. The US has sold billions of dollars in high-tech weapons to Saudi Arabia, including fighter jets, laser-guided bombs, gas bombs, and surface-to-air missiles. According to the report, arms sales to Saudi Arabia accounted for 25 percent of total US arms exports between 2015 and 2019.
With the American and Western weapons still flowing to Saudi Arabia, can so-called Washington pro-peace efforts be a source of optimism? So far, the Americans have made claims devoid of actions, or if there have been actions, they sought to wrist concessions for Riyadh.
With the Yemenis clinging to their full rights in any deal to end the war, the so-called US, UN, and other Western countries' initiatives are far from accomplishing peace at least in the time frame they are pledging to end the Saudi aggression.
