Sanaa delegation to head to Riyadh along with the Omani delegation

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
14 Sep 2023 21:35

The president of the Supreme Presidential Council of Yemen and his country's negotiating delegation meet with Oman's delegation to continue talks on Saudi Arabia.

Yemeni people walk near to Bab el-Yemen, background in the old part of Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010 (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Mahdi al-Mashat, the leader of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, held a meeting on Thursday with a visiting Omani delegation accompanied by the national negotiating team.

"In response to Oman's mediation efforts, the national delegation will head to Riyadh along with the Omani delegation to continue consultations with the Saudi side," al-Mashat revealed during the meeting.

This comes as a pivotal step toward resolving the issue of the war on Yemen, which has witnessed numerous rounds of negotiations and international efforts to bring peace to the war-torn nation.

The national delegation will resume discussions in Riyadh, building upon the previous rounds of talks that took place in Sanaa and Muscat, with the most recent being during the holy month of Ramadan.

An official delegation from the Sultanate of Oman arrived in August in Sanaa as part of mediation efforts undertaken by Muscat to stop the war in Yemen.

The head of the Sanaa negotiating delegation, Mohammad Abdul Salam, said the Yemeni negotiating team, along with the Omani delegation, arrived in Sanaa to consult with the Yemeni leadership, assess the current situation, and resume the negotiating process, foremost of which is dealing with humanitarian files.

On Sunday, the leader of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, confirmed that the aggression against Yemen has killed tens of thousands, referring to the coalition's occupation of large areas of the country, and its control over the country's wealth in terms of oil and gas, in addition to its blockade of Yemen.

During a speech he delivered in commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Zayd bin Ali, al-Houthi pointed to the ninth consecutive year of aggression on Yemen "under the direct supervision and intervention of the Americans and the British, and the execution of their Saudi and Emirati agents, without justification."

It is noteworthy that in April, a Omani delegation sponsored talks in the Yemeni capital between the Sanaa government and an official Saudi delegation headed by the Kingdom's ambassador to Yemen, Mohammad Al Jaber. The two sides discussed the humanitarian file, a cease-fire in Yemen, and the start of a comprehensive Yemeni political process.

In mid-April, Saudi Arabia announced that a team from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a series of meetings in Sanaa, which witnessed in-depth discussions on the humanitarian situation, the release of all prisoners, a cease-fire, and a comprehensive political solution in Yemen. It added that these meetings will be completed as soon as possible, leading to a comprehensive, sustainable, and acceptable political solution for all Yemeni parties.

In October 2022, Sanaa announced that negotiations to extend the UN armistice in Yemen had reached a dead end after Saudi Arabia refused to pay the salaries of public employees from the revenues of oil and gas produced in the Yemeni governorates, to stop the war, and lift the blockade imposed against the country.