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Richard Barltrop, Yemen's peace process: the need to change the international vision and framework, International Affairs, Volume 101, Issue 3, May 2025, Pages 1119–1131, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf019
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Abstract
Since the start of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen in March 2015, the basis for the dominant international understanding of conflict in Yemen, and for the dominant vision for a peace process, has been that Yemen is in a civil war, and that peace requires a return to a sovereign national government in Sana'a and to the political transition arrangements which were in place during 2011–14.
This vision has tied mediation efforts to an increasingly inappropriate framework and ignored realities about governance in Sana'a, the internationally recognized government and the issues of contention, as well as the need for Riyadh–Sana'a talks.
As a consequence, opportunities for making greater progress on peace have been missed. The ineffectiveness of the peace process has also contributed to the conditions in which hard-liners in Ansar Allah—the Houthi-led political movement in power in Sana'a and northern Yemen—have been able to strengthen their control, reducing the possibility for peaceful political change.
International policy-makers and practitioners need to change the international vision and framework for Yemen's peace process. They should:
Acknowledge realities about the rival governments, recognizing that hybrid and multiple arrangements in governance can be compatible with peace;
End inappropriate insistence on UN Security Council Resolution 2216 and allow it to be formally superseded; and
Facilitate inter-Yemeni dialogue, to the extent that they can, without trying to direct a process and formulate agreements.
These and other recommended shifts in approach will ease constraints on progress and widen the space for a Yemeni vision and Yemeni-led peace process to develop.
