Will Yemen’s new nationwide ceasefire ease energy security concerns in China and the rest of Asia?
- Efforts to extend the country’s first ceasefire for years, and create an opportunity to negotiate an end to the conflict, continue despite setbacks
- Move signifies ‘the most significant step in a while to shake up a largely moribund political process in Yemen’ according to an adviser
Yemen’s warring factions are holding back channel negotiations to extend the country’s first ceasefire in six years and develop a road map to end a seven-year conflict which has threatened the security of Asia’s oil supplies and export trades with Europe.
The ceasefire declaration on April 2 was followed on April 7 by the Saudi-orchestrated resignation of Yemen’s beleaguered president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi during a conference of political factions in Riyadh called by the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Hadi transferred his powers to an eight-member presidential leadership council comprising representatives of disparate Yemeni groups opposed to the Houthis.
But participants at the Riyadh conference “had no idea” about the formation of the presidential leadership council “until it was announced following hours of closed-door discussions” between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and “a small group of Yemeni politicians”, said Maysaa Shuja al-Deen, a senior expert at the Sanaa Centre for Strategic Studies.
